The Study of Non-Entropic Change
by qwanderer
Summary: It's surprising how much can change between one breath and the next. Even, Bruce thought, when you don't breathe for two weeks. - Warnings: slash, technobabble, spoilers for Thor: Reign of Blood, situations reminiscent of underage relationships (all characters are in fact adults). Main ship: Bruce Banner/Hel Lokadottir. Part of the Midnight Mystery series.
1. Chapter 1

One day, on his way through the halls of R&D, Bruce ran into Dr. Elizabeth Ross.

He was... startled, to say the least.

"Betty," he said, freezing in his tracks.

"Hello, Bruce," she said. "I was going to call you while I'm in town, but I didn't know I was coming until this morning, it's just that Stark Industries called me in for an emergency consultation, and I wouldn't have come, but the fee they offered... Bruce, you heard I married Len, right?"

Bruce nodded wordlessly for a moment. "Yeah, uh, congratulations. And you have children, I heard too."

"Yes, two already. Justin and Eliza. They're beautiful. You should come down to Virginia sometime to visit. I know you'd love them. I wasn't sure if you were getting my emails, you never replied, but you were, weren't you. You just didn't want to talk to me. God, I'll shut up and leave now, we've probably both got important life-saving work to do." She turned away, sad and flustered.

"Wait," said Bruce. "You're allowed to stop and say hi when you see me. I don't hate you. Farthest thing from it, actually. I just can't... be around people unless I'm working. Not with the Hulk still here." He tapped the side of his head.

"You aren't still trying to get _rid_ of him, are you?" Betty looked at Bruce with concern.

"No, I've accepted that that's never going to happen. The Hulk will always be part of me, and I have to learn to deal with that, and that's exactly why I can't be... here."

"What do you mean?"

"Betty, I can't meet your kids. I can't... just be friends with you. Not yet."

She looked at him sadly. "Bruce, I'm sorry."

"No, that's... that came out wrong. Don't look at me like that. Don't be sorry for living your life. You've got your family and I've got mine."

"Yeah?" she asked, smiling her gentle, inviting smile.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "Tony, Josh, Darcy, Jane, Peter... to tell you the truth, living in the Tower feels a lot like corralling kids some days. Even Thor - he may be hundreds of years old, but I'm the one who taught him how to use a coffee maker. Makes you feel kinda...protective."

She laughed softly at that. "And you're happy?"

He nodded. "It's a good life. More than I thought I could have."

She smiled. "Well, take care of yourself. And someday we're going to meet each other's kids! I'm not taking no for an answer."

Bruce chuckled. "We'll see." He gestured over his shoulder. "I really do have to get back to my work, I have cultures incubating..."

"Of course," she said, and hugged him. There was surprisingly little awkwardness about it, and he hugged her back briefly before pulling away.

There wasn't the flood of emotion he'd always feared would come with that, with seeing her again, knowing she'd made her choice, and it was a good one. Bruce was no kind of dependable, no kind of steady or normal, and never had been, really. Leonard was good for her.

There was some pain, some bewilderment and despair and, of course, anger, and he dealt with it the way he had for years now, throwing himself into work, letting the emotions trickle through, letting the work pattern his life and keep the pain/despair/anger constant and steady, processing it a bit at a time. It worked. At least he could say that. It left him hurting and tired, but useful.

He got a lot done when he had something big to process, and he hadn't really realized how much this had affected him until Tony took him aside and told him to stop working.

Tony.

"Bruce," Tony said, "I think you could use a vacation."

Bruce looked at Tony's excited face with deep suspicion.

"What. Normally you do everything in your power to get me to stay here and not disappear into some tropical paradise."

"Did you know that Josh has a daughter?"

"That has to be a non sequitur. Also that still sounds so bizarre. I still think of him as Loki. How did he pick that name anyway?"

"Don't ask me how his twisty little mind works. You know as well as I do there are probably too many factors to count."

"Great, now I'm lost. What subject are you trying to talk about?"

"So, Josh's daughter lives in this great place."

"Ah, I see. Is it a tropical island?"

"Nope, better."

Bruce gave him a disbelieving look.

"It's a place that shouldn't exist within the laws of physics, and where you would be physically incapable of hulking out, and even if you did, you couldn't destroy anything. And if you ask nicely, she can make it appear to be a tropical island."

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "Okay, I'm officially intrigued."

"Also she has the most extensive library in...well, out of any place Josh has been. He keeps giving her books. And there are races from most of the realms there."

"I swear, it sounds like the kind of thing you'd make up to get me to come with you. I feel like this is too good to be true, and you're baiting me into some kind of trap."

"No, it's all true! Just ask Josh!"

"Tony, he's the _god of lies._"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Everybody always gets hung up on that part of his personality. He doesn't actually lie that often, if you're paying attention."

"All right, granted. Still, neither of you is the most reliable witness in this case."

"Hmm, you may be right. I might have to get Thor or Sif in on this. Well, we should all go anyway. Make this a big party."

Bruce sighed. "Fine. If one of them will corroborate your story, I'll go on this crazy vacation with you."

"Sweet! We're going to Hell!"

"...Ok, you lost me again."

But Tony only left the room again, gears clearly turning inside his head.

* * *

Loki had suggested the trip partly for the benefit of Jane and Thor, for he had been turning over the idea of Helheim as a stopgap measure for his brother's lady love since his last visit to his daughter's realm. As he suspected, they leapt at the chance, and they were both instrumental in getting Bruce to agree to join.

He knew his daughter would appreciate as much company as he could muster, and so asked the other Avengers as well. Clint flatly refused, and Natasha followed his lead, which was unsurprising, and after all, they didn't want to leave Midgard undefended by all its heroes. Peter volunteered to stay as well; although he had quickly made a place for himself in the tower, he also had family and school in the city, and took his responsibilities seriously - in some ways, more than the adult Avengers.

Sif was happy to join, and convinced Steve to come along, which surprised Loki - Sif had never seemed particularly to enjoy her visits to Helheim, but merely went if she had business there, did what she had come for, and left.

That left Darcy, and Loki was particularly eager to have his sorcery students meet each other, but it was not to be.

"I _can't_ go off planet again, not for that long. Do you have any idea how much I missed the internet while I was stuck on Asgard?" Darcy whined. "And especially not right now. Tumblr is still going crazy with the Captain America wedding rumors. It's so much fun to watch them freak out about it."

Loki sighed. "Is that truly something you value above further training as a sorceress?"

Darcy looked torn. She'd wanted to avoid a serious conversation, get out from under it without having to confront, you know, Loki. But of course the master of manipulation wasn't going to let that slide.

"No," she said glumly. "But, Josh, I really do need a break from all this new supernatural stuff that keeps happening to me. I wanna sleep in and drink coffee and sit around until I'm bored out of my skull. I want to feel like a _normal human_."

"Tony would tell you that normality is overrated," Loki said, but his face held understanding and resignation. "But if I had a chance at feeling that for a little while, I would take it. So, another time."

"Thanks," she said, and hugged him, surprising the older sorcerer. "Have a nice time. Say hi to Hel for me."

Very few people touched Loki with affection - in fact, really only Tony, Thor and, on the rare occasion he saw her, Frigga. Thor and his mother practically had no choice about caring for him, he sometimes thought - they had been the ones by his side as he grew up, and there was a certain inevitability to that. He knew from the way he could never think anything less than kind about Hel. But since her rooting in Helheim, their relationship had changed, she had changed, separating herself almost entirely from the life of the body and focusing instead on the mind. They showed affection by talking and reading.

Tony had come out of left field with his exuberant and very physical forms of affection; they'd fit together from the beginning, oddly enough, even when they had been threatening each other with the prospect of allies with crushing force. Tony didn't hesitate in anything he did, and this human girl was so like him, in that way. Darcy could be Tony's daughter.

Both Loki and the Tony of his mind's eye cringed away from that thought, the sweet temptation and the pain of it; but he did remember what Tony had said about watching him with Darcy, and Loki finally loosened up enough in the embrace to pet the girl's hair, to treat her as he once would have Hel, for then his daughter's days seemed as unmercifully short and precious as those of a human.

Loki wondered if he would one day be brought to the point of stealing apples for a whole gaggle of silly beloved humans. When he had taken one for Tony, he had told himself Stark was the only one he would take such a risk for.

Loki grasped Darcy's shoulders and pulled her back so that he could look her in the eye. "Do not let me keep you from doing what you wish with the days that you have," he said. "Your time is your own, and I never wish to intrude on that. Learn magic for your own reasons, or not at all."

"Well, gee, that wasn't what the little green 'drink me' fairy said," Darcy answered, rolling her eyes. But her smile was warm, and her eyes sparkled. "No worries, I like being super powered. Just need a little secret identity time."

* * *

Secret identities were a fascinating aspect of the superhero life.

Loki's secret identity was far from normal, and he pondered that as he decided what to wear. Officially, Loki was still banished from Asgard, but he and Heimdall had come to an understanding - as long as he came through the Bifrost as an Avenger, as Joshua Albastru, he would go unreported.

It would have taken immense energy to move the entire party to Helheim without the assistance of the Bifrost, and so they had decided to exploit this loophole. Ostensibly, they were all traveling with Thor, who was going to visit his niece.

Joshua Albastru was blue with red eyes, preferred human clothes (formal or smart casual), and had just recently acquired a haircut that left him with a short black fuzz of hair on his head and a much greater likelihood that at any given moment, Tony would call him "kitten."

It was an identity that he had clung to the last time he had been on Asgard as a shield against the expectations of the culture in which he had been raised. But today, he would be passing through Asgard on the way to Helheim, and he was not sure that he needed define himself as Joshua so strongly.

The haircut was growing on him, thankfully; it was a complete defiance of Asgardian culture, and as such, was very much Loki. It gave him an otherness beyond even that of his blue skin.

But the leather, he missed.

His eyes roamed towards Tony's side of the walk-in, where a leather jacket hung in a corner, for the most unused since Tony had taken to using the suit over any other mode of transportation.

He turned over options in his head. Illusion, fabrication, satisfying himself with plans for later. He couldn't wear Tony's jacket; the sleeves would be too short.

But he found himself picking it up anyway, letting his fingers brush the weathered surface. It smelled of well worn leather and Tony, and he slipped it on, looking in the mirror. The sleeves must have fallen nearly to Tony's knuckles, because this wasn't bad at all, actually.

Black denim, black leather and the red shirt that Tony always loved because it matched Josh's eyes were the final choices; when he looked at himself, what he saw was that he was Tony's, and also that very spirit of reinvention that was what he loved about Tony: Loki had picked up what remained of his life and he had rebuilt, changing where it seemed necessary, and now, finally, he could be proud of what he saw, proud of who Joshua was, proud of who he was - he only hoped he could leave some things behind as thoroughly as Tony had left behind the Merchant of Death.

Some days Loki feared he could not. But with Tony's old comfortable leather wrapped around him, it was more difficult to miss his own.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony had to tear himself away from his workshop, an almost inevitable irony, since he wouldn't be able to build _anything at all_ for the duration of their visit. So of course he was in the middle of redesigning the repulsors for increased efficiency based on an idea that had come to him in the shower.

So ten minutes before they were set to leave, Bruce was dragging him towards the door as he looked over his shoulder, shouting new ideas at Jarvis and straining to see if the model changed in response. Instead, Jarvis shut it down.

"Traitor," Tony muttered to the air, and grabbed the bag he'd left by the door to let himself be led by Bruce out to the landing platform.

Then he saw Loki, short hair and leather, blue and red, and that small, knowing smile.

His leather, in point of fact.

He went straight to his lover, dropping his bag somewhere on the way, to bury his face in Loki's neck and wrap tired arms around his waist, suddenly feeling all the fatigue of time spent working.

"Missed you in leather," he murmured, lips working his way up the long blue throat to the ear. "But that's mine, you sneak thief."

Loki chuckled, low and deep, arms encircling Tony now as well. "Oh, and what will you do about that?" he asked.

Tony shrugged. "I'll get it off you later. For now, it looks good where it is."

Loki hummed contentedly in response, and they kissed lazily until they heard a high cough coming from the direction of the door.

Jane stood there, giving them a look that said 'Really?' and Thor, behind her, seemed unsurprised. Bruce, whom Tony had honestly maybe just a little bit forgotten was there, looked caught between annoyance and indulgent fondness.

Tony put on a grin for Jane, sliding out of Loki's arms and beckoning her out onto the platform with enthusiasm.

"So, are you ready to visit your third non-Earth tourist destination?" he asked her, and she didn't disappoint him, bursting into a smile like sunlight and bouncing a little.

"Am I ever!" she answered. "Oh, and I never got a chance to thank you properly for that visit to the deep moon lab. I know you don't usually let people down there who aren't Avengers, and believe me, I understand about people being possessive of their equipment, especially the specialized stuff. Oh my God, how is my life even real? Asgard, the moon, and now this! I never imagined - well, of course I imagined all the time, but when I was being realistic, I never thought I'd get to see all this!"

Tony looked smug. "Yeah, the universe turned out to be pretty crazy. Living on the moon? Everything I ever thought it would be, and yet still occasionally surprising." He laughed.

"And, I mean, okay, my wildest dreams have been pretty wild," Jane continued, "sci-fi inspired wackiness of all varieties. But nothing like this. All the sci fi I've read or watched and nobody's ever described a place quite like Helheim. It's utterly impossible, just way out there! I mean there's stasis, yeah, but rarely consciousness during stasis. The only thing I can think of is The Next Generation's Moriarty, and he was an AI. I guess the rules are different."

"I'm glad you are so eagerly awaiting this journey," Thor replied to her when her breathless speech paused at last. He laughed, delighted and generous, pleased that he might be able to spend more time with her while they were on Helheim. Their planned stay was two weeks, but without sleep or food being necessary, it would seem considerably longer. "Not even the best scholars of Asgard, masters of the most obscure of magics, can explain Helheim to their satisfaction." He looked thoughtful. "Although it is not unlike... what was that show we watched together? Stargate, the planet where the people lived only in their memories while machines kept them prisoner."

Jane shivered. "Oh, thanks for that. I _hated_ that one." But her general excitement didn't seem to have dimmed.

Bruce shuffled a bit closer. "So you're introducing an alien to pop culture sci-fi? What else have you covered?" he asked Jane curiously. "Original Trek, I hope. Any books?"

"Yeah, definitely, Star Trek up through Next Gen and some Asimov and Heinlein," she said with pride. "Thor takes to the adventure story side of things more than the speculative fiction aspect, but I guess for that you really need the scientific context."

"I enjoy stories about meeting people who think differently than oneself as well," Thor elaborated. "But Asimov confuses me. There are beings like Jarvis, but no internet, although Jarvis says the internet is part of him, and other things that do not make sense."

Bruce chuckled. "Speculating about the future here is always hard. We keep discovering new things that change the way we live. So he tried to think what might happen because of overpopulation and A. I., but he couldn't know about the internet, because it was something nobody had imagined yet."

Loki looked thoughtfully at Thor. "I have been busy picking up the scientific context, although Tony did insist on showing me the original Star Trek. Apparently it holds nostalgic value for him. But I am forced to admit that I am impressed both that you sat still long enough to read such things, and that you understood when they didn't make sense."

Thor laughed. "It was quite challenging," he said, "although I know Jane reads them to relax between much more complex tasks."

Sif and Steve came out to the landing platform soon after that, apologetic and suspiciously mussed, and soon enough they were calling Heimdall and blasting off into the sky.

* * *

Hel appeared in the gates, wearing a magnificent gown of black slashed with red, whether consciously or not echoing the colors her father wore. She took in the man and his guests with a sweeping look, swift but thorough.

"Father," she said, holding out her arms. "What _has_ happened to your hair?"

Loki smiled a bit self-consciously, walking towards her to embrace her. "I've done away with it," he answered. "It was no use to me. On Earth, the rich and powerful are neatly trimmed, and only... what was it again? Stoners and starving artists? ...keep their hair long."

Tony chuckled, and Steve shook his head, but he couldn't keep a hint of a smile off his face.

Hel hugged him, then held him slightly at a distance to better look at him. She smiled. "If you say so, then it must be true," she said. "But oh, what would they think on Asgard?"

"He nearly had me in tears of laughter," Sif responded, "walking into my wedding feast like that. After what he did six hundred years ago, it was a neat apology. It may not be as important as it once was, but still, no one of the upper court would willingly wear their hair so shorn."

Hel gave Sif a mirth-filled look. "Father's idea of righting wrongs has never quite lined up with everyone else's, has it? And yet I must admit to preferring it, sometimes." She cocked her head. "Congratulations, by the way. This is your Steven?" Hel nodded in their direction.

"Yes." Sif's face lit up. "My wife, Steven Rogers."

"Welcome to my realm," she said. "And you, doubtless, are Jane?"

Thor beamed, eager to introduce her. "She is."

Jane stepped forward, intending to shake Hel's hand. "Wait," Hel said, lifting a palm in warning.

Loki looked at her. "Let the mortals come in; my spell can only hold back the cold for so long."

"I only mean to warn," Hel answered. "I would have them know what it is they do." She turned to the humans again. "When you pass through the gates, only my magic will allow you to function."

"Here, I'll show you." Tony stepped through the gates and literally froze.

"You didn't warn him you were going to do that, did you." Bruce had a grudgingly appreciative look on his face. "It's not often he gets successfully pranked."

"I would prefer it if you woke him," Loki told his daughter pointedly.

Tony unfroze again, looking around at the slightly changed positions of the people around him. "Yeah, very funny, Hel. So how much did I miss?"

"Nothing to speak of," she said with a playfully unrevealing smile.

Bruce frowned slightly. "So Loki can't do whatever it is you do to allow people to move inside the walls?"

"No," Loki said, the barest edge of resentment overtaken almost immediately by pride. "Her abilities are unique. I can do very little of my own magic inside the walls." He held up the arc reactor he wore around his neck, usually glowing green, now dark.

Bruce looked at Tony's reactor; it was dark, too. He felt a shiver go through him although he had been told to expect that. He sought a distraction. "So is there some kind of anti-magic field?"

"Helheim is so cold, even Yggdrasil's roots do not flourish." Thor looked contemplatively at his hammer. "I have not visited since the spell was cast on Mjolnir. I know not whether it would be heavy or light within the gates, since it cannot change its mass without Yggdrasil."

"Ooh, can we test that?" Jane said excitedly.

"Later, I think," Thor said. "For now it stays here." He put Mjolnir down and walked through the gates.

"Aww, why?"

It was Hel who answered. "Mjolnir dislikes being within the borders of my kingdom. Give it a chance to get used to the idea."

Jane frowned. "How do you know?"

"My specialty is magic of the mind - it is how I give life and motion to those within the gates."

"How?" It was Bruce asking this time.

"I've rewired your minds just a bit," she said with her disconcerting asymmetrical smile. "You now have Allspeak, the ability to receive and transmit thoughts on the most surface levels of your minds. The light your 'eyes' are receiving is a slightly deeper transmission of my own thoughts. Your core life force, usually put to work running the physical processes of your bodies, is now powering a basic telekinesis spell that allows you to move your body as you wish, although none of its processes are currently running."

"So it's all you," Jane said, frowning slightly. "We're all completely at your mercy here. You've got the on and off switch."

"Well, yes," Hel said. "Did Father not explain this to you properly? You are his guests; you may leave whenever you wish."

Jane considered, then shook her head. "It's a little Squire of Gothos, but Thor wouldn't have brought me if it would put me in real danger. I'm not all that comfortable with it, but it's a risk I'll gladly take for science."

Hel looked closely at the mortals. Tony looked slightly uncomfortable as well, but not as much as he had his first visit. Steve didn't; he knew well that there were all kinds of ways to have control over a situation. Bruce - Bruce looked honestly relieved.

He stepped inside after the others, and his shoulders relaxed and fell backwards, as if he had just let out a tremendous breath.

Hel approached him, letting the others mill about and converse in her current entrance hall, a cave that had both architectural structure and natural mineral growth, as if it had been constructed and then left to crystallize for aeons.

"Earth's heroes are certainly an interesting group," she said, shifting herself to stand beside him, watching the others.

"Actually, I think we're more like a range of scientists and science projects," Bruce said, as he surveyed the group.

"Oh?" said Hel curiously. "And which one are you?"

"A little of both," Bruce answered, smiling a bit with suppressed amusement.

She nodded agreeably. "I believe I can relate."


	3. Chapter 3

"Think of something you want to show Jane," Hel asked Thor.

"There are so many things," answered Thor. "But if I were to choose one, it would be this place as it truly is, without illusion."

Hel frowned, startled. "Is that truly what you wish?" she asked Jane. "It is nothing so impressive. In some ways it is nothing at all."

"Oh, I'd love to see it for myself," Jane said with unexpected passion. "In fact, there's nothing I'd like more."

Hel muttered something about tidying up if she'd known, but she did not hesitate to drop the illusion of the grand entrance hall, and her own glamor as well.

So what greeted their eyes now was a scrawny ten-year-old girl in a rich, pearly grey dress, with the same bicolored face and hair as before. Around them, Helheim's stone wall had shrunk to barely eight feet, and the ghoulish images of motionless bodies stood around the edges, just inside the walls. The middle of the space was empty, a wide rocky field, except for one huge, sprawling pile of books and scrolls and other miscellany.

Sif looked unsettled - she'd never seen the true Helheim, and she told Steve as much. "It pains me to imagine a child left to themselves in this emptiness," she said.

Steve looked around. "It is a little eerie," he said. "But a kid can get used to a lot. Reminds me of the time I snuck into the TB ward to visit my mom. Long as you're not too hungry or too cold or too sick, as long as there's one person you can depend on, kids can adapt. Whatever space you have, whatever things are inside it, that's your castle and those are your treasures."

Hel nodded, smiling knowingly. "You know what it is to be a sick child," she said, her tiny body and young voice incongruently wise, but one got the feeling that she had suffered and been solemn even when that body had been as young as it looked. "You know how building imaginary palaces is all we have." She smirked, a very familiar expression, and kissed Steve on the cheek. "Do you still build?" she asked.

"All the time," he replied. He brought out the tiny sketchbook he had had with him on Asgard, and showed her what was drawn in it.

Meanwhile Thor was looking around slightly sadly, as if he had seen this barren place but was not quite accustomed to it. But then he caught sight of Jane's face.

Jane looked around, fascinated. "How long has all this been here?" she asked. The blue-green glow cast over the whole area by a magical cloud gave it both a fey unreality and a stonelike solid coolness.

"Many of the creatures have been here since before I came," Hel said. "The walls were built shortly after that, and since then, beings have arrived through the gates or not at all. I've woken every being at least once, to find out why they're here, whether they would like to stay, and whether they are of interest to me. Some have left long ago. Most of my subjects fall into three categories - interesting mortals, beings who were in pain but refused to die, and prisoners which Asgard can contain no other way."

"So they've been here since you landed?" Tony asked, peering at the figures with a frown. "What's that been, Loki said something like 900 years? And they just... stand there?"

"They are unaware of the time passing," Hel said to him. "But yes, roughly that long. I keep one or two awake on an average day, to converse with. Only the prisoners stay sleeping."

"It's kinda creepy the way you keep people stored here in the meat locker of the gods forever." Tony liked Hel, but he really wasn't sure about that aspect of the place. It had been out of sight last time, but now it was difficult to ignore.

"That is necessity," she replied, unperturbed. "I keep no one except those who wish to be here and those who are too dangerous to leave elsewhere."

"And who makes that call?" Tony pressed.

"Odin and I must agree. They have all brought worlds to the brink of destruction. They are all near impossible to kill."

Steve nodded solemnly. Tony was not so easy to convince.

"Shall we take a tour of my collection?" Hel asked, raising challenging eyes to Tony.

"Sure, let's make the rounds," he said, sauntering in her direction.

Loki looked between the two, wondering what had become of the cameraderie the two had shared on Tony's first visit. He had a brief pang of conflict at the thought of being forced to choose a side. On the one hand, Odin's decisions were always suspect in his eyes, but on the other, this was _his Hel,_ and Loki would always stand by her.

They turned right, keeping to the wall and soon the first of those still-as-stone figures was before them. She was a frost giant, tall and slim and near-naked, and she stood with a placid smile on her face.

"Manadis. Here by choice. She fled a death sentence on Jotunheim, and came here before the walls, before I was born."

The next was much shorter and solider, a dwarf arrayed in thick furs.

"The mad swordsmith. The weapons he made had cruel powers. He made himself impossible to kill by tying his soul to his favored blade, and enough people had been tortured."

The line went on, sick, injured or mortal volunteers, dangerous prisoners, figures of all shapes and colors and sizes. Then one seemingly human figure caught Bruce's eye. "Is that... who I think it is?" he said.

"Most likely," Loki answered. "He was one of the special requests, once I'd gotten Hel a few of his plays to read."

"William... Shakespeare?" Steve's eyes widened comically.

Tony laughed. "Now _this_ is gonna be good."

"Can we talk to him? He's not one of the prisoners, is he?"

"Certainly not," said Hel. "I'll wake him for you." And the figure burst to life, first blinking, then beaming around at the faces before him.

"Ah, new faces," he cackled. Then he did a double take at Loki. "New faces and old, all equally welcome. Especially you, my fellow liesmith," he said to Loki. "You look well. A new costume for a new part?"

Loki looked down at himself, blue, red and black, then nodded, as if admitting a point. "You may call me Joshua Albastru," he said with a ridiculous formal bow. Will's eyes glimmered.

"And mistress, and thunderer, you look the same as always, only wiser - I'll not admit anything else. But who are the rest - human or otherwise?"

There was a round of quick introductions, Sif as Aesir, Steve, Tony and Bruce as human but with extended lifespans, and Jane as the only unaltered human. Shakespeare kissed her hand, saying something about the transient beauty of flowers being all the more precious, and she giggled, and Thor glowered. Will was unintimidated, well aware of the protection his mistress's powers granted even from the likes of such as the thunderer.

"It's... really odd to see you here," Steve said to the man. "I studied your plays in school. We learned your date of death and where you're supposed to be buried and everything. How on Ea- how did you end up here?"

Shakespeare smiled indulgently. "I venture to say it was odder to have lived it," he said. "There I was, sitting around being retired, when a member of the Unseelie Court showed up in my garden and asked me to walk the ways between worlds with him. Well, what better had I to do?"

Steve frowned. "Did he tell you anything else about this world before bringing you here?"

"That's not quite the question I was expecting," Will said, turning to Loki with raised eyebrows.

"Forgive my new friends, master poet," Loki said in answer to the unasked question. "They are in some doubt as to whether you are here willingly. You see, they are in the business of heroics, and they cannot seem to stop thinking of rescuing people, even when they are on vacation."

Tony chuckled at that. "I do kinda go overboard sometimes, don't I? No worries, I haven't got the right costume with me to go busting down doors and kicking ass."

"Heroes," Will said with the same tone as a starving man might say 'roast beef.' "Well, you must tell me something of your stories before you go, yes? I must admit that I do have some regrets about agreeing to stay here. I do love the new, and there is so little that is new here."

Loki _tsk_ed. "Come now, William. You did agree. You knew what awaited you here. You knew your world with its short lives and ever-changing fashions would be lost to you." He shook his head. "If it is not to your taste, you have only your own lack of foresight to blame."

"Ah, my most honest Puck. You did tell me that my ills would drop away and that there would be more time than I could ever hope to spend. You did _not_ tell me that I would never again taste wine, or bed a lady."

"And would you trade it away, mortal, for the ground in which you would have lain these centuries past?" Loki asked him, eyes shining with the game of wits.

Will smiled, caught in the inevitable end they always came to. "You know I would not, Trickster. My place is here, in the graveyard of stories, where all stories come to rest at last."

Loki chuckled. "Then tell me, what is it that you truly miss most?"

This was a question that Loki knew the answer to, but still, a question he had never asked, not in all the years William had lived here, not in all the any hours thay had spoken.

"A fresh audience," answered the bard, turning his face up as if to sunlight. "A new challenge."

Tony smiled, catching on and getting into the spirit. "There's one person in particular I'm always trying to get a rise out of, and he's right over there." Tony's thumb pointed in the direction of Bruce, who looked up, alarmed to find William Shakespeare's twinkling eyes on him in fascination.

"Oh, no," he said, "Tony, you told me this was going to be a nice relaxing vacation. This was not what I had in mind."

"Well, maybe it should be. You need to loosen up. You're still not really strutting." Tony shook his head with a show of disappointment.

Shakespeare smiled, catching Tony's wink. "The stride of a man is often determined by the weight between his legs, or what he wishes the audience to think it is."

Tony laughed. "Oh he's packing, believe me I've seen it, it's downright unnatural."

Jane snorted with sudden laughter.

"You wouldn't know it, looking at the fellow." Will looked Bruce over with an unimpressed eye.

Bruce rolled his eyes, aggravation still well-balanced by humor.

But the jokes only got worse, Tony and Will apparently trying to out-crude each other, and Loki occasionally jumping in to assist.

It wasn't anything he hadn't heard before (mostly). And it didn't really start to bother him until Tony mentioned Betty.

Tony wasn't usually this bad, but it seemed like he was determined to provoke Bruce, and Will followed his lead, accidentally blundering closer to the pain he was still processing than even Tony would have dared. And Tony didn't stop him.

Bruce tried, but they wouldn't let him get a word in.

This would normally have been danger territory, and Bruce clenched his fists and tried to wait it out, but they just kept _going._ Teasing and crude. Disgusting. Intolerable.

He _needed_ to stop them. He wanted to flatten them.

Bruce exploded at them, screaming he didn't even know what words, throwing all his rage at them. And finally they'd fallen silent, will a bit wide-eyed, but Tony merely smug. Then Bruce stopped, looked at his hands. Really looked. They looked pink and normal. Yes they were fists, but they weren't tree-trunk-battering-ram-sized fists.

Bruce started laughing.

Harsh laughter, helpless laughter, laughter that was almost sobs, laughter that would have turned his face bright red if he had needed to breathe at all, but of course he didn't. There was nothing to fear, there was no way to destroy, and so Bruce sat down and laughed everything out, laughed until he felt empty and light and very, very tired.

When he finally came back to himself, the others were some distance away, still gathered around Tony, Will and Josh, who were effectively usurping any audience Bruce might have had for... whatever that was. Only Hel was still beside him, and as he noticed her, she put a hand on his shoulder, rubbing comfortingly.

"It is very rare for me to meet a person who is as relieved to arrive here as I was," she said. "What pain is it that dogs you so?"

Bruce fought back another weak, bitter chuckle, rubbing a hand over his face out of habit, although there was no ache to go with this emotional fatigue.

"I'm dangerous," he said earnestly to her. "I always have to keep calm, keep control. If I don't..." He looked at his hands, seeing green where there was only tan. "No one can stop him. No one can stop him but me. That's a weight I always carry, and here, it's just... gone. He really can't break through, while I'm here. I knew he shouldn't be able to, but nothing's stopped him before, no kind of restraint or weapon. He always breaks free." Bruce's shoulders moved in the equivalent of a long, shuddering breath; Hel's hands continued to rest there, a reassuring presence.

"Then I am very glad you have found your way here," Hel said, soft and confident. "A haven for monsters of all kinds - a place where you can destroy nothing. You are very welcome here."

Bruce sighed without breath, leaning back into her arms, no longer worried about what kind of impression he was making on the queen of this realm, no longer worrying about anything, but instead enjoying a peaceable emptiness, like a flat, waveless surface of an inland sea.

She held him without complaint, humming softly in a way that reminded him of the other angels he had known, that helped him feel safe.


	4. Chapter 4

After Bruce had calmed and Shakespeare had gotten everyone's heroic tales, Tony called Hel over again to show her what he had brought in his luggage, and Bruce came too, rejoining the rest of the group. Will bid farewell to everyone and went back to his place, once again going still as stone.

The bag contained a number of things that Tony had thought to bring to present to Hel for her library: all his dad's patent applications on microfiche, the sole copies of any extant information on the Serum experiments he and Bruce had been conducting and had recently completed, a selection of magazines with Tony's face and signature on the cover (there was a ripple of laughter as he said, "These things'll appreciate like crazy, especially in a completely non-oxidizing environment"), and some old Captain America comics and collectibles (this, surprisingly, was a revelation that prompted no teasing - it might have had something to do with the blood spatters that were still on some of the cards). There were also books, ranging from the ridiculous (I am America and So Can You, also signed) to the sublime (a book of extremely vivid poetry that Loki was undecided about whether Tony had actually read).

"Oh," said Tony, "and if anyone's curious about what Bruce looks like if you make him angry back on Earth? Kinda like this." He opened the back cover of I Am America and So Can You to show the author portrait on the back flap, which was a drawing of a huge, green, muscular Stephen Colbert stabbing a bear with an American flag.

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "I... didn't know the Other Guy had insinuated himself that far into pop culture."

Tony grinned. "You're a star now, Brucey. One of us. Can't escape now."

Hel widened her eyes at the image. "Really?" she said.

Bruce bit his lip, suppressing laughter. "That's, uh... that's not what his face looks like, but... you get the general idea, yeah."

Hel turned to her father. "You've seen this?"

"Oh, yes," Loki said. "I know the beast's size and strength far more intimately than I would like."

"Show me."

"There is pain in that memory," he warned.

She frowned. "You know I am no stranger to memories of pain."

"And still, somehow, I do not like the idea of burdening you with more."

"It really wasn't very pleasant," Bruce contributed with an uncomfortable frown. "It never is."

"Hey, don't diss the Big Guy," Tony said. "He's saved my life, how many times now?"

Bruce shook his head, feeling the weariness of an argument played through many times. "All right, so he can _occasionally_ make a positive difference if his capacity for destruction is aimed in the right direction, and if my luck holds out. That doesn't make him _nice._"

"Father," Hel said, low and serious. "I need to know. I need to know the worst."

Loki closed his eyes, both in acceptance of the necessity and to gather his thoughts. Tony's eyes found him, always interested in this phenomenon, though he had seen it before, and Bruce's attention was pulled to the mages too.

Loki held his hand out, blue fingertips brushing against Hel's blue temple, and energy passed between them.

Her eyes opened, a little shock escaping before her face went blank for a moment as she processed what Loki had shown her.

Bruce began, slowly and nearly reflexively, to retreat, to leave the space where people were gathered.

Hel's arm shot out and caught his wrist. "I do not fear you," she told him, looking him in the eye.

"Right," he said. "I saw your face."

She pulled him by the shoulders until he was facing her straight on, until he no longer looked like he was trying to escape. "Father has never before allowed me to experience a memory from the time when he lived every moment in fear of Thanos," she said. "Thanos, I fear. Your Hulk? Hardly." She swept an arm out, gesturing to the still figures around them. "You've seen my prisoners, from the biggest to the smallest. You know my kingdom and its rules. And you think I would ever fear brawn and violence?"

Bruce looked apologetic. "I guess not."

"Then don't run from me. We monsters have to stick together."

He looked at her for another long moment, then nodded his assent. "All right."

* * *

Loki caught Hel up on a few more pleasant things, like the experience of walking through the Stark Vistas resort with its low gravity, dark sky and crowds of excited people. Like Sif and Steve's wedding. Tony's workshop, with its glowing interactive shapes.

That she found especially fascinating, and she tried recreating them in the form of illusions, and Tony, Loki and Bruce all pulled and pushed at them as they would Tony's holograms, telling Hel what she'd got right and when they didn't quite respond properly. Eventually they reached the limits of her focus in creating the images, and they all collapsed and vanished, leaving the group laughing.

Then they began to scatter, exploring the objects in Hel's trove.

Thor had found one of his old storybooks that he'd loved as a child, one he'd given to Hel when she was born - one of the few books she'd had in her collection before her collection became the Great Library of Helheim. Now, he rushed to show it to Jane, to show her the stories he'd grown up with as she had grown up reading stories about space travel and meeting alien creatures. They both grinned widely, he in nostalgia and excitement, she with fascination and affection.

Sif went for books of art first, knowing Steve would appreciate them. But she ended up paging through an old elven manual on combat techniques against larger opponents, and soon Steve was looking over her shoulder and discussing the things he'd learned when fighting people much bigger than himself.

Tony had become fascinated by the fact that the fabric of his bag moved almost as he imagined it should, even though it was unchanging and had no life energy, as their bodies did. He and Loki were discussing the ins and outs of the mechanics of the telekinesis spell that allowed it to do that and how it might be applied in engineering other impossible things.

Hel and Bruce found themselves, once again, standing side by side, looking out at the others in their places, naturally gravitating into pairings.

She sent him a small smile. "What a surprise, seeing you here," she said.

Bruce looked sidelong at her. "Yeah, I feel like the last kid in class who always has to get paired up with the teacher."

She shook her head, still smiling, but with a bit of a dark twist. "I do sometimes envy my uncle, and the Lady Sif, for what they have found on Earth, and their partners for having gained them."

"Not Tony and your dad?"

"I can never begrudge Father anything. What they have makes Loki happy, and so me. With the others? It is hard for me to be so... evolved."

Bruce laughed. "I get that. Tony and Loki are my family, too. Yeah, I wish I had what they have - I wish it a lot, actually. But being around them doesn't bother me. Not usually, at least." More dry laughter escaped him.

"Is it really such an impossible wish for you, finding something like that bond for yourself?" she asked Bruce.

He bit his lip. "Yeah, it is. I've decided that." He looked at her. "What about you? You rule your own planet by your own personal rules. Seems kind of like you could do whatever you want."

"How could I ever pursue such a relationship, unchanging as I am? Leave aside for now the very limited number of my acquaintances. I cannot make illusions of things unless someone shares their own experience with me, and as I understand it, such memories are very personal. And even if I did gain the knowledge, it would be false; I have doubts that I could successfully counterfeit such an intensely... physical experience. And I believe such things are expected, even integral to the experience of romance on all the worlds I know of. I could not hope to find anyone not accustomed to having such things."

"I don't think it's as hopeless as all that," Bruce said, oddly endeared to the centuries-old goddess and the gaps in her knowledge. "There are quite a few people on Earth who are interested in romance but not sex. And, well, I'm... definitely not accustomed to having any of that, not for a while now."

"Why is that?" Hel asked curiously. "If it is not too personal a question."

"It's not a good idea for me," Bruce answered, shrugging. "Physical and emotional reactions of the kind that that would provoke, they're too likely to trigger the Other Guy. And I haven't found any way of getting around that."

"But you do wish to experience it again. And on Midgard, many things may be changed."

"I can't just... _fix_ the Hulk."

"Why not?" Hel asked, honestly confused.

He gaped at her, not knowing where to begin answering. Practical, impractical. Possible, impossible. It all meant nothing to her, Hel, who was a being so allergic to the laws of physics that she would tolerate none but her own.

_Goddess._ If there was such a thing, this was it.

Bruce laughed and raged, but breath was an illusion and he couldn't even have proper hysterics if he tried.

"Do you know, do you _know_ how many times I've thought about it? How many times I've tried?"

"I can't know. All I've ever known is here and you can't know how frustrating that is, Doctor Banner. My father tells me you are wise but I have lived your lifetime ten times over, all trapped in this place, in this child's body! What I wouldn't give for _change, any_ change!"

Bruce chuckled darkly. "Half monster, but unable to destroy."

Hel looked at him with a smile very like those he'd seen in the mirror, amused but resigned. "Half god, but unable to create."

Bruce shook his head. "What is all of this but creation? Creativity? There's so much here that wasn't here before you came. People coming together, truths being learned, knowledge gained."

"It's a collection," she said, sounding cool and distant now. "Nothing more than a collection. No more growing than pressed flowers, no more breathing than ink on a page. My so-called kingdom is no more than a pile of books in a dark quiet corner. A catalogue of lives that are over, journeys that are done."

"It doesn't have to be," Bruce said, frowning at her. "From what I've seen of your magic, from what I understand of the nature of this place, there's a lot that could be accomplished here that could be done nowhere else." He was letting himself get excited now. "I thought the _moon_ lab had an interesting set of physical variables to work with. _This_ is something else entirely. What happens to a wavicle when it's unable to be a wave? How does light even exist here without energy and excitation?"

"You want to study the unchanging, watch it to see what it does?" Hel asked skeptically.

"Yes! Exactly!" Bruce turned to her with wide excited eyes and it was as if he was a child again, no worry about how he looked, how he acted, how much control he had. There were just the concepts, the thoughts, running wild with no undercurrents of tension, no need to keep focus on one train of thought, no need to keep Hulk subdued.

Hel watched him. This place had changed him. Somehow, here, he bloomed like a flower.

That reminded her of something her father had said, long ago, when she had first come here.

_You have always been the rarest of flowers, and you flourish only in this remotest of places._

Hel lay a hand on the side of Bruce's face. "If you can bring change to an unchanging place, I think it safe to say that you, Bruce Banner, can do anything you set your mind to."

She smiled, and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

There was no arousal in this place, not that there should be between a woman with the body of a ten-year-old child and a man in the midst of trying to heal the rift between his two personalities. But Bruce's heart was open in a way that was unprecedented for him, and Hel felt that for the first time, there was someone else in her realm who could be precious to her on the order of magnitude that her father was precious to her.


	5. Chapter 5

Thor and Jane had now joined Loki and Tony in their discussion of dimensional magic and the nature of Yggdrasil, and the ways in which one might study Helheim by taking very precise measurements along the border, finding out how space and the laws of physics changed as one moved through the gates.

Bruce and Hel came over as well, and Tony got Hel to give him the illusion of his holograms, so he could illustrate visually the equipment he meant to build for the purpose.

Tony grinned self-mockingly when he made a 'save file' motion and nothing happened. "Wow, I keep forgetting I don't have computer access. It took me three years to build the code for this UI and you're just, what, recreating it out of what you saw in Loki's head? Just like all the illusions you do. I mean, they're impressive enough, but this is adaptive. So you're just... thinking it all up on the spot?"

"It is a challenge," Hel answered, grinning. "Still illusions, I had perfected within the first decade, and my own disguises took only a little longer. The fish I showed you on your previous visit? It took a solid century before I could create something like that from only a mental impression. This is something new, accounting for changing input outside of my own."

Tony frowned thoughtfully at her. "So what I'm wondering now is, how do you collect the gesture input? The original UI uses multiple cameras to generate virtual 3D tracking data of the fingers and thumbs, but this seemed pretty intuitive for you."

"Magic," she said blandly.

"Right, right, but it's not dimensional energy," he said, tapping his dark arc reactor. "And I think we've firmly established the 'magic is just science I don't get yet' point. So maybe you can help me get it. You know when we twitch a finger even if you're not looking. What kind of input do you get? Is it visual? Spatial? Numerical coordinates? What?"

"It comes in the form of a sense not described in your classic five," Hel said. "I am not certain humans have it, but they certainly do not have it as acutely as I." Her eyes widened, and she turned towards Loki. "This reminds me, I've learned something since I last saw you," Hel said, excited but somewhat suppressed.

Loki's eyes shone with interest. "You've come across something new, here in your unchanging kingdom?" he said with some humor.

"Yes, well, I may have been hasty in my judgement," she said. "I have been asking questions of the frost giants who are within my walls."

The excitement in Loki's eyes dimmed somewhat at mention of the Jotunn.

"There is something that we never thought to ask," Hel continued, undeterred. "Your talent for magic, and mine. Why are they so different from the powers of even the most talented of other sorcerers of Asgard, Amora, Odin? How can we know so much that none of their books ever taught us? We see magic like it is another sense, inborn. We know our own selves and our own magic as we know our own breath. It is not so for the other Aesir sorcerers, and yet it is true of the Jotunn warlocks. They have told me more of my magic than you, with all your Asgardian stores of knowledge, ever could."

Loki frowned in interest. "Tell me, then. How does it work?"

"They call it the Sorcerer's Eye. It is what gives Jotunn their instinct for shapeshifting, those that can, and it enhances their control of both magic and ice. We sense energy, especially within ourselves."

"And Aesir and humans lack this?" Loki looked startled.

Hel laughed. "Apparently. It's a bit like finding out that everyone you've ever met is colorblind, isn't it?"

"Why have Jotunn not yet conquered Asgard, then?" Her father shook his head in wonderment.

"There are two reasons I think likely contributors," Hel said. "Jotunn are more sensitive to many things, including but not limited to pain. This makes combat less appealing, but also, my Jotunn subjects who have been to Asgard say that the energy levels there are overwhelming, almost blinding. It's too hot, too noisy, too perfused with magic. I believe that Jotunn are adapted to low levels of energy and magic because it is easier to do precise magic in the absence of such background noise."

"And the second reason?"

"It is considered polite on Jotunheim to keep one's senses to oneself, and many cannot sense energy very far outside their own bodies. Doing magic on someone else without their permission, even with good intentions, would be - well, one Jotunn I woke called it 'surprise surgery.' As violating as being stabbed, but I didn't know that I was doing anything I should not."

Tony shivered. That was the kind of statement that reminded him that Hel was not of his world, and was a goddess.

"I had wondered," Loki said, examining his blue hands thoughtfully, "how it was that Odin managed to disguise my nature so thoroughly for so many years, only to have it revealed in that instant. Perhaps, after all, it was my own doing, more instinct than not."

"It may be," she said. "Changing oneself is the first and most common magic of Jotunheim. Self image is critical, both as things are and as things may be. You must know yourself in order to change yourself, the deeper the better. But there is also a component of potential. The most basic form of healing magic is believing so hard in your own physical integrity that you make it true."

Tony quipped, "When I do that, people call it a superhuman capacity for denial."

"Ignorance will get you nowhere," Hel told him sternly. "You must know your injuries in order to heal them. But if we know our own capacity for healing, down to the last iota, we can make it work for us the way we wish it to."

Bruce was intrigued now. "For you, it's like breathing, I guess. Your bodies maintain themselves when you're not thinking about it, but it's routine for you to take conscious control. And using that to manipulate things outside yourself is just like blowing on things to make them move or to cool them off. It's not the original purpose for that conscious control, but it's very useful in a lot of ways."

Hel smiled. "I think that a very apt comparison, Bruce."

Bruce looked thoughtful. "That makes me wonder - if Asgardians are learning the same stuff by chance, just stumbling around in the dark, maybe some kind of magical biofeedback could benefit them."

Tony raised his eyebrows. He'd seen Bruce's data on his own exploration of that subject.

"I've heard the term," Jane said, "but I don't remember exactly what it means."

"Well, we have conscious control of our breathing partially because the evidence of breathing rate is clear to our senses. We can feel and hear our own breath. That helps us be able to train, and some people have trained enough that they can hold their breath for several minutes. On the other hand, normally, hartbeats and hart rate are completely involuntary. What biofeedback does is to take something like that, invisible and involuntary, and show it to the person as it's happening. That way they can learn how to influence those processes. It allows us to form a mental map of things we can't normally see. Human brains can learn to do a lot of things they're not obviously designed for." Bruce turned to Hel. "So what do you think? Could Aesir use a similar method to make it easier for them to learn magic?"

"Bruce," Hel said, looking at him with a gentle wonder, "I think biofeedback _is_ magic."

He frowned. "But it's completely divorced from the whole dimensional component."

Hel waved her arm. "So is everything that I do here. The Aesir view of what magic is is rather too narrow for my own understanding."

Loki frowned thoughtfully, pushing aside for now the ethical and moral implications of what he had just learned of himself. There would be a time for that, after the practical considerations. "That would mean that this ability, the Sorcerer's Eye, is a completely separate phenomenon from traditional Aesir magic, although frost giants have both?" he mulled. "...That explains some things."

"Like what?" Tony asked.

"Sleipnir, for one," Loki answered.

Tony blinked. Then he blinked again. "Thought you said no more of the kids-you've-had myths were true, Sweetie," he said, sending an inquisitive frown Loki's way.

Loki sighed. "Sleipnir is not, strictly speaking, my offspring," he said, "although I was somewhat more instrumental in his creation than perhaps even I had realized."

"Indeed," said Thor. "I begin to see how it was possible. I thought, at the time, my request was a hopeless one."

Tony looked back and forth between the two gods. "Now, clearly, this is a story I've gotta hear," he said.

So Loki told it.

_Loki remembered when Thor had come to him, distraught, because the humans had eaten his war horses._

_"They have been my companions for a century," the thunderer had mourned. "I brought back their bones because I could not bear to leave them, and because I could not keep from thinking that you have great magics, magics I cannot understand, and that the only way I could be sure you could do nothing for them was to bring you what was left of them, and ask you."_

_As Loki well knew, Thor's greatest power was that of a pathetic visage, and Loki could not bear to send Thor away without first giving the question serious consideration, and answering honestly._

_"I cannot bring them back," the sorcerer said at last. "Not as they were."_

_And of course, of course the last phrase sparked a foolish glimmer of hope in Thor's eyes. Loki sighed. This was going to be a lot of trouble._

_The process was a highly theoretical idea he'd been working on, creating a seed soul, a proto-consciousness like the one Mjolnir had, but giving it the capacity to form itself into more._

_The bones themselves were empty of consciousness, but knowledge, history, they had that._

"Sleipnir's your J," Tony interrupted. "He's your brainchild, and you made him for Thor." He shook his head. "Don't think I could be that giving."

Loki gave Tony a significant look. "And the creation of Jasper was for _who,_ again?"

"For the company, for Stark Vistas," Tony evaded.

Loki rolled his eyes. "And the creation of Sleipnir was for the benefit of the Asgardian throne."

"All right, maybe I'm a _little_ selfless," Tony said smugly.

"You just have to encourage him, don't you," Bruce said to Loki without much real force.

"Always," Loki replied.

Jane was watching, rapt, and Thor, with sad eyes, so Loki continued.

_So Loki constructed the seed-soul, pulling together forces and molding the proto-consciousness in the image of the mind which he knew best, his own._

_Loki was born to be a sorcerer, he had always known as much, and so would this creature be, fit to sing his own song at the moment of his creation, and to read the nature out of the bones of his predecessors._

_He gave the precious thing to Thor with rather less ceremony than he might have, not particularly wanting his brother to know how much this had cost Loki, how important this was to him. Loki told Thor the words to say, told him to lay the spark among the bones and pour as much power as he could into the spell that would begin._

_Thor did not understand why the thing would work, and expressed doubt, it having entered his head that this was an elaborate joke from his ever mischievous brother. But Loki looked him in the eyes, letting just a little of the earnest depth of his feelings surrounding this spell show, and told Thor, "I do not know for certain that this will work. It is untested magic, magic of my own creation, and a great deal about it is conjecture. But I do intend, expect, and very much wish for it to work."_

_Thor was mollified, and went out to a place he knew of where he could best call the storm, taking the bones, the spark, and Mjolnir._

_He said the words of the ceremony, and he called each horse's name in turn, watching the bones rise and come together as he called them. When the great black horse at last stood in front of him on eight eager legs, Thor named him Sleipnir, and welcomed him into the world._

_Sleipnir remembered everything in his bones; he remembered Thor's kindness to all his horses, and the battles they had gone into together; he remembered Odin as a commander, a rider, and Frigga feeding and kissing them, all these connections times eight. Sleipnir loved all of them; he could not help it. It was in his bones._

_But he had magic in his soul, and he would always come back to Loki, always love to watch the master sorcerer at work. And people began to notice that the horse and the second prince turned their heads the same way, suddenly, unprompted, as if at a noise that no one else could hear. If they were together, it would be at the same time, at the subtle chime and vibration of magic in the air. In his soul, Sleipnir was more Loki's creation than Thor's._

_It was, of course, Fandral who started the rumor about Svadilfari and Loki's equine pregnancy. Fandral, it was expected of. What took Loki by surprise was how many people actually believed it. But Loki had been holed up studying, working on this problem, and Sleipnir had appeared unexpectedly, with much gratitude towards Loki from Thor, and they had such similar mannerisms. Loki supposed he should not have been so shocked. Those who had seen Hel without her veil already suspected that Loki had unnatural offspring because he was somehow dark and twisted._

Tony squeezed Loki's shoulder. "They're great, Lokes," he whispered. "And if unnatural is bad, then me and the bots and the J's are in a heap of trouble." The tiny smile that brought to the trickster's face was totally worth it. Hel also sent him a (somewhat unsettling) grin.

"So does that mean that animals have souls?" Jane asked, ever the scientist, ever searching for new implications. "Or is Sleipnir a sentient being, in a separate category?"

"I could not tell you," Loki said. "Even I, with my... lack of Jotunn manners, do not often find it convenient to look closely at energies outside myself. But I know that familiars, like the Allfather's birds, are more aware than most animals, and yet eerily different from Aesir, humans, elves, or Jotunn. Magic changes them. Sleipnir is like them, different from people, and yet more comfortable to be with, perhaps because I know why he is what he is."

"I myself judge by whether or not a being can tolerate being awakened in Helheim," Hel said. "Sleipnir can. Mjolnir gets very uncomfortable without its attachment to Yggdrasil, so I let it sleep. Odin's ravens brave the gates when they must, but I do not think they enjoy it. Animals untouched by magic cannot be awakened at all."

Jane frowned. "But they do have, what did you call it, life energy?"

"Yes," Hel answered. "So do the seeds in the fruit you eat, the pollen on your clothes, the bacteria on your skin. But I could not wake them, so to me, they are not alive."

"Now here's a question I'd really like the answer to," Tony said to Hel. He held out a laptop to her, screen open, lights dark. "This is the body of one of my best buds. Well, one of his bodies. He's pretty flexible that way. Anyway, pretty much everything that's him is in here. So my question is, is he alive?"

Hel took the sleek black object curiously, turning it over in her hands and peering at it most intensely.

"There is energy here, but not of a type I usually associate with life," she said.

Tony made a thoughtful moue. "It's got a battery holding an electric charge," he said. "That what you're looking at?"

She shook her head. "Physical energy is meaningless here," she said. "But there is... something else. Let me see what I can do to awaken it. I warn you, it may be unpleasant for the creature, especially if he is not adaptable enough."

Tony scrunched up his face in thought. Then he waved a hand in a 'go ahead' motion. "Jarv's king of adaptable. Wake 'im up."

Hel pressed fingers to the black surface of the laptop, and gave the appearance of listening hard. Then her face cleared, and she made a subtle motion as if drawing something out. Smiling, she handed the device back to Tony.

"Jarvis, you up?"

"I... appear to be missing many of my hardware functions," the still-dark box said, somewhat hesitantly. "I actually do not know anything about how I am currently functioning."

"Welcome to the club, J. None of our hardware is up to much here. Apparently you're sentient enough to have 'life energy,' whatever that is."

"That was _soooo_ Heinlein," Jane said, bouncing excitedly. "Remember, in The Number of the Beast, when the ship woke up? Oh, and now I remember that's where I've heard the term 'Bifrost' before. That was kinda driving me crazy."

Tony indicated the laptop with a flourish. "Hel, meet Jarvis, my right hand man. J, welcome to Helheim. That's Hel, the queen. She woke you up."

"It is a pleasure, Your Majesty. I would be very interested to know how you accomplished this."

"It was not so very different, after all, than waking a being of flesh, although I cannot give you all the capacities I give them. Your life energy is not geared towards running or moving a specific physical body. I have given you Allspeak, you had clear enough capacity for that, but I do not know what you are used to doing besides speaking."

"I keep track of things," Jarvis said. "I am not accustomed to moving a physical body, but rather a body of data." He was silent for a moment. "It is odd," he said. "I seem to have access to a much larger body of data than should be possible, given the drive capacity of the machine I was last loaded to. But neither is that store of data active, except for verbal and visual input which has no apparent hardware source. I am not networked... to anything."

"Except to us, directly, if I understand how Hel described Allspeak. She's given us some kind of... shared surface consciousness?" Bruce mused.

"You read," Hel said, and her eyes sparkled with what, if it had been Loki with that expression, would have been a potentially very dangerous idea.

"Among many other things, yes," Jarvis replied.

"May I shape your consciousness a bit farther?"

Jarvis was silent for a moment, then replied, "As always, Your Majesty, software modifications are at the discretion of Mr. Stark."

It was a veneer, a code. Since the day when Jarvis had become obviously more than just another program, Tony had never instituted software changes without his permission, verbal threats notwithstanding.

Jarvis was asking if Tony trusted Hel.

Tony looked her in the eyes, one gray and deceptively innocent like that of an Aesir, like Thor, the other red, deep and dark as blood.

"If you hurt him," Tony said in a voice like steel, "I will find a way to make you feel it."

She nodded once, slow and serious, acknowledging that if anyone could find a way, it would be Tony. She put a hand on Jarvis's black shell once more, and frowned in concentration.

"I now have access to a large and entirely new database," Jarvis said with surprise.

"My library," Hel said with a smile.

For the first time since Loki had brought her here, Hel looked tired.


	6. Chapter 6

Jarvis and Tony began a conversation on what all was in Hel's library, starting with anything resembling a scientific text or anything claiming to be instruction in magic. Jane was drawn into that quickly when some star charts were uncovered.

Hel sat down on the hard ground; position was meaningless in terms of fatigue, since their bodies were using no physical energy to stay upright, so every motion was a communication. Bruce, accustomed to taking the emotional temperature of any group he was in, noted that immediately and went to sit down beside her. She leaned against him.

It was nice to have someone be completely at ease, even calmed by his presence, and for once not be afraid of himself around that person. Betty had never been afraid, but after that first incident, he'd been petrified for her, every time. Tony refused to be intimidated, but neither was he exactly mellow, since his default mood was borderline manic - and he wasn't as indestructible as he liked to pretend, either. Loki was afraid of Bruce, and rightfully so - he'd borne the brunt of one of Hulk's tantrums, after all. The rest? They liked him, even trusted him, but there wasn't this kind of ease.

Bruce smiled softly, and wrapped an arm around Hel, still in the small body and soft grey dress of her true form. This was simple. This was easy. This was exactly what he had needed.

Bruce chuckled, and Hel turned her curious mismatched eyes on him.

"I was just thinking, I have to admit to Tony that he was right and I was wrong," he said.

"Oh? About what?"

"This is _much_ better than a deserted island."

Hel laughed as well, high and sweet and content.

* * *

Steve had noticed Sif looking unusually pensive, and asked her what she was thinking of.

"Loki and I..." she began, "we had a very mixed friendship, over the centuries. Pranks and falling outs and reconciliations and fighting side by side. And all through that, I believed myself to have the high ground, to be acting as befitted my place as a warrior of Asgard and a companion of the princes."

She paused, and Steve nodded, encouraging her.

"I never knew Sleipnir's true origin, but that does not excuse my thoughts at the time. I must admit that I believed the rumors could be true, and I mocked Loki for them," Sif said regretfully. "But at the time, it seemed so important that I should be a warrior only, and show contempt for anything womanly, such as magic and bearing children." She shook her head. "I do not think you would have liked me then."

Steve cringed a little. "Maybe not. But then, I love who you are now. And I've become a little more understanding myself. I've needed to be, oh, say, since I met Tony Stark?" He laughed, a little dry, a little disillusioned, a little older than he had been when he'd first woken up in this century. "Some people, some people with the biggest hearts and the best intentions, can look a little like bullies because they don't know how to act, besides the way other people treat them." He sighed softly. "The important thing is that you mean to right the wrongs."

Sif thought about that, and then she laughed, realization and a little sadness in the tone. "To atone for cutting off my hair, Loki stood on Asgard without his. And now, I wish to atone for contributing to the whispers that he has borne a child?" Sif looked at her spouse with suppressed mirth. "Well, I may need to show up on Asgard with a child of my own."

Steve's eyes sparkled as he looked at her. He wrapped her in his arms. "Oh, that's a very reasonable motive for becoming a parent," he teased lightly.

She shrugged, leaning into him. "Better than some," she said, thinking of Loki again, his destiny as a diplomatic gamepiece. Then she shook such dark thoughts out of her head. "But the more I think on it, the more I love the idea of creating more of what we are together, having a family so we can teach them what we have learned, and find out who they grow up to be."

"I'm glad to hear that," he said, whispering into her hair. "I want that too."

* * *

Hel, now more composed and wrapped in the illusion of her adult self, wearing deep blue velvet so dark it was impossible, came to Thor with the idea that she and Bruce had been mulling over together.

"I think," she said, "now that I understand how our senses differ, I can help you to do magic much more effectively."

Jane smiled excitedly. "Really? I'd love to know how."

Thor's brows drew together doubtfully. "I am not a mage, Hel. I never have been. My lessons in magic as a child were frustrating enough for a lifetime, and I have no plans to go through that again."

She smiled wryly at him. "I think you have been struggling against a great disadvantage," she said. "Your parents were already versed in magic, and Loki and I, we took to it quite naturally, as if it were inborn in us, because, well, it was. You never stood beside anyone learning from the same starting place as you. It must have been immensely discouraging."

"As I said," Thor responded, unmoved. "It was enough."

Jane didn't say anyting, but just the hint of a disappointed frown on her face was enough to get him to reconsider. And this was his sweet niece. Between the two of them, charming and ever curious, he was doomed.

"Fine," he said at last. "What is your plan?"

Hel smiled, and Jane bounced a little, and even Bruce looked pleased. Genuinely, without resignation or exhaustion. And that was rare enough that Thor felt this was, without a doubt, worth another try.

"Well, the basic principle of biofeedback is just to give you a visual representation of your unconscious processes," Bruce explained. "So I figured we'd start out by having you step outside the gates and do some magic you're familiar with, and Hel can show you what it looks like."

Thor nodded, and the whole party started off in the direction of the gates.

Tony was especially pleased about the prospect of this experiment, too. "Finally, some concrete data on the techniques and mechanisms behind biological magic," he said. "I've been trying to get this stuff out of Loki for ages, but there's only so much you can do with words to explain something that's apparently _instinct_ for his _species._ Guess this explains why Thor was even _less_ helpful at explaining it."

Thor gave Tony a crooked smile. "I told you that I was no sorcerer," he said. "I do not believe that will change. But I hope that this will indeed prove useful to you." He stepped outside the gates, giving Mjolnir a friendly pat as he did.

Hel turned to Tony. "If you put Jarvis outside the gates, I think you may find the data he returns with will be stored in a more useful form."

Tony raised his eyebrows but did as she suggested, powering on the laptop and setting it near Thor.

"Now detecting hardware," Jarvis said in a tone that was more confident and matter-of-fact than he had been. "Time-stamped video feed is being saved to this machine's hard drive." Then he paused, hesitant again. "Although I believe the time stamp may be off, because the data gathered between connections with this hardware exceeds the time passed according to the onboard clock."

"Yeah, that would happen," Tony said. "Quartz can't vibrate in Helheim."

They all looked on in fascination as Thor rolled his shoulders, mentally preparing to cast. Hel overlaid an anatomical diagram over him, energy flow lines and intersection points and outflow points - that much, Loki had been able to explain to Tony, Darcy and Bruce, and it was a more or less familiar visual. She also put up a flat display with bars labeled 'dimensional energy usage,' 'efficiency,' and 'spatial distortion.'

"You've got this science talk thing down pat," Tony commented. "Hard to believe all this is relatively new to you."

"For one," she answered calmly, "you must remember that the way we are communicating in fact uses very few words, and is rather a direct exchange of meanings - when you speak a word, I learn both that word and much of its context. For another, Loki's memories of your workshop go deeper even than that, showing me how you work and therefore how you think." She smiled her disconcerting smile at him once again, then turned to Thor. "Uncle, summon your armor, and watch the displays."

Thor, having taken in the glow around him and being familiar enough with doing magic for Tony's experiments, shifted his arms up and out a little as he performed the familiar spell.

Green-blue sparks of energy gathered at the intersection points, flowed through the pathways and out through Thor's hands, and the silver segments of his armor materialized around him and clung to his arms and chest. 'Dimensional energy' and 'spatial distortion' shot up, while 'efficiency' wavered but stayed low. Thor watched, frowning, wondering how this was supposed to help.

"Now that you've seen what happens," Hel told him, "I'm going to tell you what I think might help - I want you to try to get the efficiency slider to go higher, as high as you can get it. The other two may go down, once you do that, but for now, just focus on a single variable, the middle slider, and try to get it to go up. Don't expect it to work right away - this may take a while to learn. You'll just be trying to get an idea of what makes that level change." Hel looked to Bruce, to make sure she was explaining the exercise properly. He nodded reassuringly.

Thor scowled a bit, biting back a sigh. "Of course, this is only more 'practice and do better next time.' I have tried this before. Something tells me this will end no better than my childhood lessons," he said, but he flicked his hands to dismiss his armor, and watched the sliders with narrowed eyes as he summoned it again.

The first several times, as they had expected, there was no perceptible change in the way the sliders moved with the spell. But perhaps on the seventh or eighth casting, the middle slider spiked upwards and stayed there for a half-second.

"Good!" Hel crowed. "Did you feel that? That was good!"

"No," said Thor, shaking his head and dismissing his armor once again. "This is fruitless."

"No it's not," Bruce insisted. "There's some variation in how you cast the spell, and it takes time for any kind of biofeedback to work. It's like learning the language your body speaks in. Well, I guess you've never needed to learn a language... it's like learning how to follow animal tracks. You can know what you're looking for, but in the beginning you spend a lot of time just seeing dirt."

Thor nodded to show he understood. "I can call the armor because I know the beast when I see it charging upon me. But Hel is teaching me how to find its spoor." He gestured to the readout.

Bruce smiled. "Yeah, I think that's right." He thought of his own beast, and his struggle to find what it was up to before it reared its ugly head at him.

Thor settled himself to the task again, determined. "Then I will set my eyes to the trail."

The next few times were no different than the first few, and then Thor twigged to the fact that his very enthusiasm may have been a disadvantage. The casting after that, the level rose, and stayed.

There was a cheer, Jane and Hel leading it.

As Thor continued practicing, he got better at controlling the levels of the sliders, and the efficiency one got continually higher at its peak. Tony also noticed that the movement of the energy through Thor's body was more tightly controlled, that the energy was gathering mainly in his arms now before flowing out, rather than through his entire body.

The scientists and Loki and Hel chattered excitedly, theorizing about what this meant for the study of magic and how they could take further advantage of the phenomenon. But soon enough Hel stopped Thor, saying that he would soon reach his limits and he should rest. She beckoned him inside, saying that it was not his body that would be fatigued, but his mind, so he could recover within the gates.

Jane leapt on him and kissed him, and he smiled in return, pleased and proud and tired.

"Your Midgardian science will make my magic better," he said. "I think humans will never cease to surprise me and teach me new things."

She nodded emphatically from where she was perched in his arms. "You've got what it takes," she told him. "If science has taught me anything, it's that persistence is key. If you think you can get something done, keep at the problem and eventually you'll find your way through it. And you're stubborn enough to do just about anything, even if people think you're crazy to try. And that's what I love about you."

He grinned back at her, humming in satisfied agreement. "In that case," he said, "I will never give up until I have shaped my world into something that you would be proud to call home." He looked at one of his hands, eyes glinting in wonder. "And perhaps this can help."

They rested their foreheads together, dreaming of the future, and the endless, eternal possibilities.


	7. Chapter 7

Mjolnir was bound and determined not to enter Helheim bearing Odin's spell.

When Thor tried to lift it with the intention of bringing it through the gates, it refused to budge.

Jane bore an expression that was a collision of pained sympathy and suppressed amusement at Thor's hurt surprise.

"Don't hurt yourself, buddy," Tony commented. "I don't think it's going anywhere right now." But he didn't tease too badly, because Loki's watchful eyes held as much pain as Thor's, only a different type, more guilt and longing.

Thor frowned at the hammer, silent. Finally he said, "Steven, do you wish to try?"

Steve shook his head. "Experiments should only be done on volunteers."

"I think that a wise choice," said Hel. "It will not go. It is afraid."

Bruce shook his head, as this was stirring up some of his deep feelings about issues he usually didn't allow himself to think about. He'd been vaguely uncomfortable about the whole thing with Jarvis, and he was mad at himself for not thinking of the fact that things like Mjolnir might want rights, too. "See, even _he_ gets that," Bruce said, gesturing to Steve, "and he didn't grow up with the cultural shadow of the Holocaust hanging over his head. I don't know why it's so hard for some people to understand!" The scientist was moving energetically now, letting himself feel entirely one of those pockets of rage and frustration that he had hidden away throughout his mind. He'd seen too much of people being denied their rights just because they looked different than other people. Not only that. Experiments on children, on animals, on entire regional populations without their consent. The coverup of environmental contaminants. It was all tied together, and his anger built.

"Bruce," said Tony. "Step back from the gate."

Bruce knew that tone. It was the tone people used on him when he was showing signs of transformation. His habitual control snapped back into place like a hard slap to the face, and he looked at where he was and what he was doing.

About to step over the line, leave the safety of Helheim.

He took three steps back, and then collapsed onto the ground.

Hel came and sat next to him, and the others moved away, farther into the walls, giving them space.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry...I haven't exactly been my usual cautious self while I've been here."

Hel smiled. "There is no reason to apologize. You could have done no real damage, not to anything with value. We were merely concerned for you, and your reaction to your alter-ego's appearance when you were not expecting it. As for your lack of caution... I like it. You seem... like a prisoner broken free." She considered him. "Do you want to stay here forever, Bruce Banner?"

He looked at her, shocked, honored, completely delighted that she'd choose him for something like this. Then he really thought about it. "Thank you for asking; it really means a lot," he said. "But I do have a life, back home, such as it is."

"Is it what you want?" she asked.

Bruce rubbed at his forehead, thinking. "It might not seem like enough, to some people," he said at last. "But, 'I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.'"

She laughed, quiet and content and thoughtful. "Yet here, you do not sleep."

"Or more importantly, _he does_," Bruce responded. "He hasn't even pushed for control, not really. He tests the bounary, but I guess he doesn't like what he finds. Do you think he's like the animals? Or like Mjolnir, uncomfortable when there's nothing to hit?" The doctor's bitter humor came through in his tone.

"I could not say, not having met him. Your mind is too complex for me to unravel in a day. But from what Father and Tony have said of him, I think you underestimate him greatly. I think if he were the one walking in, then he would wake, and you would sleep. Remember, self-image counts for a great deal."

"Either way," he said, "I haven't been this happy in a long time. It's nice, not having to worry about whether he's going to come out and ruin someone's day."

"So stay here," she said again.

"No," he said. "I'd either have to stay here forever, not even visit Earth for an hour, or I have to get back in the habit of always being angry. It's the only thing I've found that works. I don't want to give up Earth. There are things I'd miss, and as much as I deny it, the Avengers are safer with me around. I want to be there for them."

Hel nodded silently. "If I leave here, I die," she said. "I have to make do with memories and visitors. It is my life, and I am content, but I would not wish it on anyone else."

Bruce laughed again, bitterly. "I feel you there," he said. "There are a lot of things I've had to content myself with never having."

"I don't know if it's better or worse that I had so few experiences before I came here, and only a handful of them good," she mused. "Is it better to miss something, or to never know what it is one lacks?"

"I couldn't tell you either, and I've lived a little of each," he answered. "I think... I'm glad to have the memories I do, but it's nice that they fade a little eventually. I miss things a little less sharply after a while."

"What experience have you never had, that you wish for most keenly?" she asked. "If you would not mind revealing so much."

"I, uh," he chuckled, covering pain. "I always thought I'd be a parent. Now, I'm glad I've never had that experience."

Hel nodded solemnly. "I know, from the colors on the edges of thoughts Father has shared with me, how much caring for a child can hurt, especially if one feels responsible for that child's pain. Some emotions are too strong to hide."

"Thank you for that," Bruce said, locking eyes with her. "I feel like everyone else I've said that to, everyone who's close enough to get it out of me, they all want to tell me to have hope, to change my mind and go after what I want. It's a relief to say that and not get pushed."

"You are quite welcome," she said. Then her face changed, and she moved her hand as if brushing the subject aside.

"So there are some things you cannot have, and are glad of your lack of experience with. But you do have memories of other things, like physical intimacy?" she asked, sounding curious and rather wistful.

"Yeah, from before the accident," he said, looking at her, considering. "I'll share them with you, if you want," he said finally. "Although I'm not certain how that works."

She stared at him, shocked, disbelieving but pleased. "You would share that?" she asked.

"Yeah, well, privacy's something else I haven't really been accustomed to since the accident," he said. "I've woken up naked in too many piles of rubble."

"You need not give up the privacy you do have, not for me. The touch of two minds is... not always pleasant, for those unaccustomed."

Bruce huffed a dry laugh. "I don't know that I'd count," he said. "I'm also never really alone in my head any more. Even when Hulk is sleeping, I feel him. And as hard as that's been, I know it could be worse." Bruce thought of the way Clint still flinched away from Loki sometimes, as if he were remembering being vivisected, rendered into component parts. "But really, I'm much more curious than wary. Not the most common sense state of being, I guess, but then there's a reason I became the Hulk. I want to know how things work. I've become more wary, but I never did get around to becoming less curious."

Hel frowned thoughtfully, but then the corners of her mouth turned up. "I do enjoy the qualities of your mind," she said. "I would like it very much if I could become even more familiar with it. But even if you are certain that you want to share those memories, there are all kinds of possible complications. Starting with the fact that you are untrained in any kind of biological magic."

"How does it work, when you and Loki share impressions?" he asked. "How much of that is him?"

"A great deal," she said. "Any powerful and conscious enough magician can break into a mind; I have done so on occasion, and so has he. It is generally not pleasant for either party." Bruce nodded to show he understood. Hel continued. "My father has a tremendous amount of control over his own mind, generally speaking," she said, then frowned a little, looking down. "A mind that is so honed to certain tasks can easily fall out of balance when circumstances demand other things of it. But when he knows his task, he is extremely adept at revealing the appropriate truth vividly, and keeping to himself anything that it would not serve him to reveal." She looked at Bruce again. "He separates those impressions he is willing to part with into a separate pocket, which makes it very easy for me to take them without disturbing the rest of his mind."

Bruce was thoughtful. "I can't say that I'm exactly certain how it is he does that, and I don't know how much of it is magic beyond my knowledge and how much is simply discipline and practice with controlling one's own thoughts and impressions. But when it comes to the latter, at least, I wouldn't call myself untrained."

Hel smiled at him, intrigued, and it was only a little disconcerting how the light sparkled in her one red eye. "It is purely life force manipulation, with no dimensional component. Mental discipline, not Aesir magic."

"Then you could tell me about how he does it, and maybe I can do something similar. Though somehow I'm still not afraid to have you take a look inside my head as it stands." Then something occurred to him. "Would this be dangerous for you? The Hulk is in here too. He has a lot of... violent tendencies, a lot of anger and I know sometimes he uses them against me on purpose."

Hel blinked. "Would you believe I had not even thought of that? It does not occur to me that anyone but a trained sorcerer might be dangerous to me on my own ground. But I still doubt it; he may have force, but he does not have the knowledge to trap me before I can deny you both the passage of time long enough to cease contact."

Bruce nodded, satisfied. "All right. As long as you're prepared. What can you tell me about how Loki separates his thoughts?"

Hel described the meditations Loki had taught her, the refinements they'd discovered along the way. They sat face to face, and it was familiar in some ways, but there was no breath to focus on, only their essential selves and the images Hel projected.

She changed shape, warped her image in impossible ways, said things there was no word for in English, and his mind stretched to keep up.

There was no light, there were no words, there were only Bruce's mind and Hel's mind, the suface layers overlapping, and when Bruce understood clearly what that meant, Hel said he was ready.


	8. Chapter 8

There was pretty much only one thing Bruce wasn't sure about, and it was a worry that he'd gotten resigned to over the years.

Hulk had tried to come out, before, and he had failed, and left Bruce laughing with relief, pain, surprise, everything. Since then he had been sulkily dozing in the back of Bruce's mind, and Bruce was afraid that given the opportunity, he would lash out mentally, rather than physically. But as he went through the meditations Hel recommended, Hulk didn't stir, not caring about science or experiments or whatever new way Bruce was trying to keep himself calm.

He trusted Hel to keep herself safe in the mental landscape that was her home ground, even if that meant shutting down the experiment, but the thing was, he _really_ wanted this to work. A small part of his brain was raving about the fact that he was about to have a _real mindmeld_ with a _real hybrid alien_ and it was that magical combination of deliciously experimental, and something he had wanted his entire life.

And if the Hulk got in the way of that, he would hate the Hulk even more.

He chastised himself. This was supposed to be for Hel, it was supposed to be a gift for her, some kind of return for everything she'd done, everything this place was to him, and he was - he was being so selfish about it.

He didn't have to school his body to moderate its reactions, but he was having to focus in order to keep from the spiral of worry/excitement/guilt/panic/distraction his thoughts and emotions were threatening to play out.

He opened his eyes, finding Hel's, the one red and the other grey, fascinating and familiar and steady as stone, steady as her kingdom's bedrock, infinitely immovable.

He nodded. "I'm ready."

She lifted a hand - the blue one - and touched it to his temple, and her mind came up and touched his.

It was, as he suspected it would be, much like feeling the Hulk in his mind - an other, an observer, a force outside himself. But where Hulk would push, Hel pulled.

Where Hulk would turn away when he wasn't getting what he wanted, Hel wanted only to know, was curious what Bruce had in his mind. Hel was drawn in to his thoughts just as he was.

Hulk was on the defensive immediately - she didn't belong here! She wasn't Hulk and she wasn't Banner and this was their selves! Bruce was nervous again.

Hel, undeterred, reached out to Hulk in the same fascination, and - Bruce didn't know the rest; he was shut gently out of the conversation going on in his own mind.

She was back before he had much of a chance to worry; Hulk retreated again, satisfied to fall back into unconsciousness.

Bruce sent some of his curiosity her way, but the answer he got amounted to "Later; the memory, while you have it prepared?"

He agreed, and focused on it. Her mind touched and enveloped it, taking it in.

So far this had gone incredibly smoothly, close to what he'd expected when he'd been optimistic.

He didn't expect to be drawn in, to be reliving the memory entirely, vividly, not only every touch and sensation but the emotions that went with them. How the swaying of Betty's hair made him think of trees in the rain. How her smile made him feel like he was the king of the world, like he mattered.

How very much he had loved her.

And it suddenly seemed awkward, living all this inside the mind of a woman he felt the beginnings of something similar with.

But he couldn't retreat now, not when he felt Hel's presence in the memory and how much she _desperately wanted_ to know more, to _feel_ more, even though it meant knowing so much that was not for her, was not _about_ her.

So Bruce remembered.

He remembered the evening he'd picked, one Christmas break from Harvard, and they were leaving for Bruce's aunt's house the next day for a family party, him and Betty, but for now it was just the two of them in Bruce's apartment, no tree and only some (structurally accurate) homemade paper snowflakes as decorations. They were curled on the couch just listening to the silence of the world, the peace, and being grateful for it.

Bruce had pushed back her hair, touched her face, and she'd smiled like that, pure, gentle delight that he was there, and he couldn't believe his luck that she'd said yes when he'd asked her out all those months ago. He smiled back, and held her in his hands gently, conscientiously, like the precious thing she was. (Even then, he'd been all too aware that men were dangerous to women, and he never wanted to [the memory broke for an instant, a flash of her face against the hospital pillow after the first incident] hurt her [he pulled back into focus], never forget how dear she was.)

She'd kissed him, then, soft but sure, welcoming him out of the contemplation he so often fell into, waking his body to hers warm against him. His arms, enfolding her, tightened a bit with acknowledging affection before his hands began to move across her body, cupping each side of her slim but strong waist before moving under her sweater and shirt, and just that small brush of skin made his heart thrill.

(He could feel Hel reacting to the unknown sensations, joyful, wistful, elated, but above all, _fascinated._ The last bit of worry over whether she really wanted this fell away, and he dedicated himself to remembering as vividly and thoroughly as he could.)

Her tongue dipped into his mouth, daring his to chase it, and oh, her mouth, soft and warm and tasting of her, and he longed to be closer to her, skin to skin at least, and he wished they could sink into each other's bones, nest there, and never need to leave.

He had no home except her.

He pulled her sweater off, caught so between gentle and urgent that his hands shook, and he gave up on her buttons halfway down and pulled her shirt off too, pressing her up against the back of the couch and kissing the place between her breasts, stopping, resting his cheek there, breathing out and holding on to her.

"Bruce," she said, "Bruce, Bruce, look at me." Her fingers combed through his hair, and she tugged gently, moving his head up and away. He followed her lead, and he looked at her face.

There was love and concern and a need that mirrored his, and she pulled him towards her again, cupping his face in her hands and kissing it, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his chin before pulling their mouths together again, kissing hungrily, communicating need.

She took his shirt off too, no less careful and no less determined than he had been with hers, and her fingers trailed down his neck and back with delicacy and deliberation and wonder, though he was never sure what it was about his blockish, sort of hairy body that inspired that wonder. And finally they were skin to skin, wrapped around each other, breathing in the scent of each other and the feeling of potential, of life.

She kept him with her, kept him focused on her face, the whole time, as he found his place inside her, and that was exquisite, yes, but the best part was her face when he did it, eyes wide and mouth parting slightly, surprise and joy and gratitude and love and so many other things written there so clearly. He moved, and her face changed, and he watched it, and she watched him back, and joy and pleasure flowed back and forth between them, growing, building, crashing through them, overflowing into cries, and crushing them together until they couldn't tell where she ended and he began.

He slumped against her where she was still propped against the back of the couch, careful as ever but just wanting to feel her skin against his, rest and touch and be together.

"Betty," he whispered. "I love you so much."

He could feel her smile against his neck. "I love you too, Bruce," she said, low and sweet and peaceful.

He was so grateful for her, so grateful that she was part of his life.

The reality that that time in his life was now only a memory crept up on him slowly, and of course somewhat painfully, but Hel was right there to catch him, half-blue face with one red eye recapturing his focus, blue fingertips still brushing his cheek, thoughts and feelings withdrawing from the memory but not from him. He thought about everything he had, the life he'd told Betty, told Hel, was waiting for him at the tower. Tony, Loki, Peter, Jane and the lab, dinner with the others, the cameraderie of the team.

He held on to those.

Hel sensed when he was settled again, and only then asked, "Are you still in love with her?"

They were in rapport much deeper than Allspeak now, and Bruce could tell what was behind the words, an attempt to hold back the question chasing behind a need to know the answer.

Bruce thought about it all, their whole history together, from their meeting at Harvard when all he had known about her was that she looked like an angel, through their time there together, the happiest of his life, edging away from the research and the incident it had led to, to the person she'd become when he returned, needing her help - brave, self-sacrificing, unflinchingly realistic and practical without losing any of her gentleness.

He remembered how she would always prod and tease with the lightest of touches, never truly painful but always persistent enough to break through his shell and make him smile, even just a little.

He had been very much in love with her - she had been his whole world - and none of those feelings had gone away. But since he'd joined the Avengers, his world had gotten a lot bigger.

"I always will be, a little, I think," he answered finally. "I can't deny that. But I'll never do anything to threaten the life she has now, and that means staying away from her. And it means finding other people to keep me level, healthy. It means finding other people that I can love."

She smiled. "You can't hurt me. Not with the strength to crush a world. Come closer; take what you need." Her mind welcomed him in.

Bruce curled in around her, elation, desperation, _need_ all rushing forth too quickly for him to deny them, and what they met in her was openness, welcoming curiosity, and a need like his but so deep, so empty, so dark it had been invisible. Their minds crashed together and it hurt, yes, but like a bone being set, or a limb coming awake; it was a pain full of rightness and healing and sparks of joy.

It was new and strange and wonderful; in some ways, it surpassed all those memories they had come together to share. Hel saw Midgardian science through new eyes; she tasted the food of many lands with a human tongue; she knew what it was to be alive and healthy, to breathe the air of a crisp new morning, sweet as an elixir. The frustration she had felt for so long now seemed justified; that was life, and her little kingdom had none. Except now. Except this.

It hit her like an ocean wave, knocking her flat, everything in Bruce's life that made him care so much, get so angry, work so hard, keep trying. He was so full - too full - of life.

And when Bruce found that empty place, that _need_ - he longed to fill it, give everything he was to her, help her build up in that empty void somewhere worth living.

The illusion she wore now was the one she had appeared in at the first, herself but adult, and today clad in a green gown that wrapped tightly around her torso, then flowed out into skirts and sleeves. He began imagining what he might do to her, if that were real, living, breathing flesh. She was a feast for the senses, so many colors, blue, red, black, golden brown, cream, grey, and now the green. He would kiss her, tongue exploring the bicolored lips and learning whether blue skin was of different texture than peach. It was, her mind supplied in return, giving over an old memory of licking her lips, the soft slide of the Aesir side giving way to the slightly tougher wrinkles of the Jotunn. His mind spiraled out in two opposing directions at that, one hesitant and shocked at the ancient source of the memory, the other, only wanting to delve in deeper.

It wasn't exactly like the memory he'd shared, of course - as a physical experience, it was only as vivid as their stumbling imaginations could create together. But emotionally, and mentally - Bruce didn't know how anything could be more satisfying, learning from the inside about the contour of someone's mind and the extent of their knowledge. And though they'd only known each other for a short time, there was a warmth and affection reinforced by its factual solidity in the other, and building with each minute, each new discovery.

And they built their own experience with snippets of sense memory from completely unrelated things - impossible things - there were no limits here, after all. Bruce took the prickle of spice and the reassurance of chocolate and the exhilaration of being knocked over by an ocean wave and wrapped it like a gift and kissed her with it. She grinned, elated, and went to construct her own present. The shining glory that was sunrise over Asgard's capital, the flow and breath of magic, and the taste of strawberry ice cream were braided into a sense of sweet vitality that left him in awe of her skill with thought and illusion.

Then he realized something, and the awkwardness of it broke down in the face of the laughter that followed.

"That taste wasn't yours, it was Loki's."

She grinned mischievously. "This is my realm, and I am outlawing embarrassment. I'll use what I have, because old as I am, you have four times the sense memories. I have to make up for it somehow."

Something else occurred to Bruce, but the moment the thought brushed the surface of their shared thoughts, it was already answered. Hel knew that Betty was special, that memory was only for her, and she would share it with no one else.

Bruce trusted Hel.

And under her prodding, he continued to bloom.


	9. Chapter 9

As they extricated their minds from each other at last, Bruce remembered the question he'd had back at the beginning of this experiment.

"So what did you say to the Hulk?" he asked.

"It wasn't so much in words," Hel told him. "But we discussed much. You, this place, your friends, his life and his intentions. My intentions towards you. He's fiercely protective."

Bruce blinked in disbelief. "All that in ten seconds?"

"As I said, there were few words. Words can be inefficient, especially for him. He finds them very unwieldy. But the deeper touch of minds renders them unnecessary, and he is very much open to the idea of mental contact; he often wishes he could express himself better, more easily."

Bruce was all confusion. "Then why doesn't he talk to me? I've been trying to accept him, work with what he is, and nothing worked; I'd started to think everyone else was wrong and I was right, he just wasn't capable of rational communication..."

"Not at all. He is as intentional and reasonable as yourself."

"Then why?" With the words, from his mind came a rush of desperation, of frustration with himself and his inability to deal with the phenomenon that was the Hulk.

Hel's mind soothed his, a reassuring touch and a slant of purple light reaching him. "Too much history. And neither of you is trained. What I've taught you... might help. But it's as if... Well, you used to hurt each other, and now, at the parts of your mind where the two of you touch, you're all calluses. You've spent so long pushing back and ignoring... it would take something extraordinary to open your mind to him again."

That was painful to hear, but it sounded true, echoed through the shape of his consciousness and the numb knowledge of the Other Guy he'd pushed to the edges, done everything he could to be rid of. He nodded, acknowledging all of it.

Hel's mental tone went thoughtful again. "There was one thing I got from his mind that confused me more than anything else. Hulk gave me the impression that he once had the Sorcerer's Eye."

Bruce's mind exploded with confusion, disbelief, questions and branching trains of thought. The only thing that actually made its way into words was "..._What?_"

"I explained to him how I see things, how I can sense the energy flowing through people and things, and he told me he knew. That it happened to him once, and he built himself a body so that he could protect you from danger."

A whole branch of theories that the Hulk had come from _somewhere else_ and somehow insinuated himself into Bruce's body during the experiment shut down. Bruce had been wrestling since that day with the question of where the Hulk had come from, whether he was part of Bruce or not. He'd tried denying it, he wanted to deny it, but if he genuinely asked himself, he knew that the Hulk had been made out of something in his own nature. Hel's revelation had simply given him an excuse to revisit the question briefly.

"...He made himself?" There were still a lot of theories left to ponder, none of which made much sense. Bruce was pretty lost. "Like a Jotunn, a shapeshifter?"

"Very much so, yes."

"But then the serum... where did he come from? What did the serum do, and what did the gamma have to do with it?"

"I do not have all the knowledge I need to answer those questions," Hel said. "I know only what Hulk shared with me of his experience." She folded herself back inward, leaving only her habitual projections of light and language open to his mental gaze.

Bruce opened his mouth to ask more questions, but he shook his head instead. "I need to run this by Tony and Loki, see what they think of it all," he said. "It's too much for me at the moment, and Tony knows the serum best of anyone except me. Loki knows the basics, and more about how magic might fit into it."

Hel nodded. "We'll join the others, then." She stood, offering Bruce a purely symbolic hand up, and they walked towards the center of the realm.

Loki's head snapped up as they approached.

Bruce could only guess at what Loki saw when he looked at them (the psychic equivalent of mussed clothing? Lipstick smudges?) but when he caught Loki's eye, the scientist knew that he was in trouble.

At first, Loki looked taken aback, eyes roaming over the two of them (and it must have been _something,_ Bruce realized, for someone who could see the energy of a person's being, and how they each had changed in the last hour). Then the sorcerer fixed him with a glower.

"Bruce Banner," said Loki, and Bruce hadn't heard him with that cold and dominating tone in his voice since the invasion more than two years ago. "You had best inform me immediately that you did not just do what it appears you have been doing."

"What?" Tony asked, looking between the three of them with concern and interest. "They look just like they did before, to me. What'cha seeing, Lokes?"

"It should not be possible, and yet, their auras are... _tangled_ in a way that indicates a particular activity." The god hadn't taken his eyes from Bruce. "Did you know, Bruce Banner, that there is nothing I would not do to protect my daughter? And did you know that before today, she was untouched?"

Tony's eyes had gone wide as he realized what Loki was implying. Bruce looked startled and vaguely guilty.

"You cannot hold it against him," Hel said, looking unconcernedly at her father. "My kingdom, my rules."

"Perhaps, but once we get home..."

"You will do nothing." Hel leveled Loki with a glare. "I chose this, and I was right to do it." She couldn't stop the hint of a smile on her face now. "How long did you expect me to stay ten, after all? It's been a few centuries, I think it's time I experienced some things."

"Once we are back on Earth," Loki continued, undeterred, "you will feel the wrath of a god. I will flatten you."

Bruce looked back at his friend for a moment, biting his lip, and then he told the god, "You can try." That was accompanied by the barest ghost of a smile.

Tony raised his eyebrows, looking impressed and proud. "Now that, Brucey baby," he said, "is how you strut."

Loki turned on Tony, then, glaring with fire in his eyes.

"Hey, babe," Tony said, putting a hand on Loki's upper arm. Loki flicked a disgusted glance at the hand before fixing his stare on Tony's face once more. "I get it. Hel's your baby. This is a big deal. But also? She's a grownup, more than me, probably more than you when you got married and had her. Am I right?"

Loki's glower collapsed a little in on itself, like a dying fire shifting but still smouldering hot underneath. "Yes, and that worked out so well for _me,_" he muttered to his lover.

"Yeah, so you had a bad experience," Tony said, pulling Loki closer so he could speak more quietly. "I don't think that's gonna happen to Hel. Bruce is a good guy, and he's not about to blame someone for being interestingly colored or exhibiting superhuman powers."

"That's not the point," Loki growled at Tony.

"Isn't it?" Tony frowned. "What _is_ the point, because I'm really not seeing a downside to those two. You _like_ Bruce. He's family. He's not gonna hurt her, not if he can help it. They seem to get along pretty well. And they're both adults. So where is the issue I'm not seeing?"

Loki sighed, eyes falling from their glare at last. "Tony," he said, low-voiced, "I know my daughter. I know her mind, how it works, how she deals with boundaries. They make her _restless._ Bruce is a good man, yes. And I would rather not be presented with a situation where I must choose between him and my daughter."

Tony found that he actually didn't have an answer to that. Comforting parenting/relationship stuff was _so_ far from his area of expertise. But he persisted. Because Loki needed him to.

"Yeah, it might not be easy," he said. "But anyone's gonna grow up restless who's had strict limits on them every day since they were ten. Just ask the kid who got sent to boarding school in England when they were that age and ended up becoming the world's most infamous playboy because he could." He smirked, a little weakly, not knowing if this was the right tack. "Things are gonna go wrong in her life, if she's allowed to live it. That's how life works. But things are gonna go right, too. Just wait and see."

Loki growled a little more, but eventually he had to concede to himself that Tony might be right.

Bruce and Hel had been waiting patiently for the bizarre parental conference to come to an end. Bruce was somewhat tentative about approaching them, even after they'd stopped muttering to each other and drawn apart, but Hel had no such reservations.

"There are some things we'd like to ask you," she said bluntly.

"About science," Bruce said, trying to avoid any further death glares. "And shapeshifting magic. Hel talked to the Hulk, and she says it's possible that he might be using it in some way."

Tony's eyebrows went sky-high yet again. "More accidental magic? I thought the arc reactor was freaky. Now the serum is supernatural?"

Loki scoffed. "Must I continue to remind you, darling, that science and magic are separated by nothing more distinct than one's frame of reference? They will overlap, they do overlap, and in most cases, things can be explained with both sets of terms."

"The Hulk recognized in my mind my memories, and Father's, of seeing and shaping one's own form," she said. "However temporary, it does seem he had the Sorcerer's Eye."

Jane heard something of the conversation and was drawn irresistibly toward it. The rest of the group took that as a cue that something important was going on, and moved in closer.

"So you're saying that the serum grants temporary magic powers?" Tony looked scandalized.

"I know only what the Hulk showed me," Hel answered. "He knows nothing of the serum, only what happened to him that day. He awoke to many things. He saw the universe and himself as he never had."

Bruce didn't even know what questions to ask. But then his darting eyes found Steve, and he realized there would be a second data point.

"Steve, I need to know. What do you remember about when they injected you with the serum?"

Steve didn't like to dwell on those painful, terrifying moments, but this seemed to be important, not just for science, but for Bruce himself, Steve's team member, to learn something about his experience and his metamorphosis, which seemed even more traumatic. So he thought back.

"There was so much light... it was way too bright and I felt like I could see through myself, see everything. Every muscle fiber, every nerve. Erskine had explained to me how the serum was supposed to work, what it was meant to do to me. I focused on that, to get myself through the pain. Imagined what I'd look like when it was all over. Imagined my bones and muscles growing, getting stronger, bigger, like the people in the pictures in anatomy books. And it happened. When I came out, I looked just like I imagined I would."

"That sounds like the Eye," Hel said, fixing Steve with a fascinated gaze. "The ability to see oneself, both in reality and potential. But neither of you have any access to Yggdrasil." Her gesture took in both Bruce and Steve.

"You never did, either," Loki realized, looking with shock at Hel. "Your magic worked the way it always had, the moment you set foot in this realm. At least, the lights and illusions. You'd found a way to do it without Yggdrasil, and the only reason that would have been was if you had no access. And you must have shaped yourself, because you survived, where none of your kind have done before. The workings of your body were too complex, too disordered for me to ever map thoroughly. But you held yourself together with sheer will, it seemed."

Bruce's mind was reeling, full of ideas. "So there are other ways to do magic on that kind of level of physical change?" He looked at his own hands, seeing them anew. He didn't know what question to ask next.

"But wait," Tony said, speaking instead. "Even if there was some kind of magical event that formed the Hulk, how does he keep changing back and forth without magic?"

Hel was deep in thought, recalling what she could of her own semiconscious magic when she was young. She pulled herself out of it to address the question.

"Bruce," she asked, "what do you know of how the change _does_ take place? I know you've studied it in depth."

"And I've only gotten a handful of useful results," Bruce responded. "But... let's see. Sterns said there was a burst of radiation from the amygdala, and that somehow triggered the change, but the change itself makes very little sense in terms of terrestrial science."

"So this radiation, it is energy which becomes available when you are emotional?" Hel's earlier rapport with Bruce made it even easier for her to pick up the context of the words he used. "It could fuel magic. That might work."

"But... wait, _what?_" Bruce frowned. "Okay, I've gotten the part where magic doesn't have to be dimensional energy. But gamma?"

Hel mulled it over again. "On most of the Realms, magic is firmly associated with access to Yggdrasil. On this realm, it is not about physical energy at all. But once energy enters the body, energy of any kind at all, I suppose there is no reason it could not be used for magic. Especially if it is of a type your mind is familiar with."

Bruce blinked as he took that in. There was only one conclusion that made sense.

"I'm an expert in gamma. Of course it's the angle I go after. All this time I've been trying to figure out what it was about the gamma that did this. And in the end it turns out it didn't matter. It was just the available energy source." Bruce looked lost.

Tony thought over the scant records he had of his father's work on the super soldier project. "I never did figure out what all frequencies were produced by the 'Vita-Ray' machine my dad put together to activate the serum," he said. "Guess it didn't really matter."

"Well, a lot of it was light," Steve said. "And I'm an artist; I guess I know light pretty well."

"That's..." Bruce pondered. "Pretty poetic, isn't it. Somehow everything seems more poetic when you look at it through the magic lens, instead of the science one."

Hel smiled. "That is one of the reasons that I prefer magic."


	10. Chapter 10

"Being an artist also means being in the habit of directing one's own vision," Hel said, looking thoughtfully at Steve. "An essential skill for magic, especially magic of the mind and body. You saw the good, the potential in the situation, where someone else might have seen only what could go wrong."

Steve nodded. "I was lucky," he said. "I hadn't seen war yet. I hadn't seen much that was too terrible for me to look past. I think I was better then at looking for the good side of things than I would be now." If Steve's gaze lingered on Tony as he said that, no one commented.

"But you saw my realm for the refuge it is; your sketchbook tells me you see beauty most everywhere." Hel smiled at him. "I think you see better than most, and some pictures are simply more complex than others." She winked at Steve, closing her grey eye and showing her red. "Tony, for example, I would be very cautious in giving the serum to, because his mind is very easily derailed from the subject before it."

Tony, who had been muttering to himself about the protein elements of the serum, looked up at Hel, after a delay, with a curious frown, not quite sure whether he should be offended or whether he'd misheard. "What does my mind do, now?"

"I think, given these powers, you would be just as likely to accidentally turn yourself into an engine block," she said with gentle mocking.

Tony considered this for a moment. "Yeah, probably," he concluded, and went back to his consideration of the formula.

Steve frowned. "Still, I'd hate to think what the inside of Red Skull's mind had in it, that when he thought about how the experiment might go, he thought of that face." And then he was looking at Bruce with new concern. He opened his mouth to ask something.

"Okay, no, don't do that to me, not right now," Bruce said quietly in response. "You've known I had problems and secrets since the first time we met, and you made it clear you didn't care to hear about them then. You trust me to take care of them myself, right?" He paused, and Steve nodded. "Then that's all I need from you," Bruce continued. "I get enough poking and prying from the technomagical contingent."

Steve looked pained. "I didn't mean..." He tried to remember what it was he'd said when he met Bruce. "I just wanted you to be comfortable. But if you need anything..."

"Yeah, I know." Bruce gave his signature sorry-I-spread-my-feelings-around smile. "But I'm never comfortable. And I am dealing with it, or trying to. And if you can do anything, I'll ask."

Steve gave him another slightly sad but understanding nod, and let it drop.

Loki, Tony and Jarvis were discussing the serum now, Loki having a lot more to say about it now that it was presented in a more familiar context (that is to say, a magical one), and Jarvis having access to the only remaining copy of the latest research, now part of Hel's library. Bruce joined them, hearing the familiar figures of his and Sterns's old test results, as well as the new, for the suppressant formula.

The finished formula was good to have for emergencies, but that chapter was over, Bruce pondered, and a new one had begun, with the knowledge that the Hulk was there, capable of and willing to communicate. That there was a mental discipline that could help.

Bruce really wasn't that interested in the formula anymore. The formula wasn't the secret to managing the Hulk, he knew that now.

Again, he found himself drifting to Hel's side.

"What else can you teach me about talking to him?" he asked.

"Mind magic isn't something I've had the opportunity to explore in depth," she answered. "I have no desire to force my will on my subjects. I already have too much power over them. And no one but my father has offered me such access to their minds before you and Hulk, and not even he lets me probe so deeply."

Bruce chewed at his lip. "So my best bet to find out more is to let you talk to him again?"

"Yes, I think so, but... perhaps it would help if I knew more about the deeper interactions of two minds in general first. I wonder," she said, surveying the group. "I wonder if any of the other humans are as curious and as determined as you."

He blinked at her.

"Examining the nature of Jarvis's mind has given me many ideas." Her eyes widened in excited thought. "Jarvis is built differently than any humanoid in ways more profound than Allspeak or the Eye, even in his fundamental life energy. It makes me wonder how far I could shape myself, and in what directions."

Bruce looked intrigued. "What's different about Jarvis? I mean, I would assume there's a lot, but I have no idea what they'd be. The idea of him having a mind outside of his hardware is pretty new for me."

"He was built to reconcile bodies of data," said Hel. "To sort through huge amounts of it, finding what is relevant and disregarding the rest. He also serves to translate between Tony's intention and the suit's actions." Bruce wondered how much of this had come from Bruce's mind, or Loki's, and how much she'd actually gotten from looking at Jarvis. He thought it probably drew heavily on both. "He is, when it suits him, merely a conduit, or a converter. Between widely varied things. And I find myself wondering if I could take my own feelings and thoughts out of the equation, as he does, and touch another mind without invading it, merely to translate their intentions to some other purpose."

Bruce was confused. "To do... what? I mean, Tony has Jarvis for the suits, and they don't exactly work around here, anyway. And you can do the hologram thing already."

"Yes, but it tires me. Perhaps I could do it more efficiently if I took the images directly from their thoughts. And there are other things that come here besides humanoids and Jarvis."

Bruce had to think for a moment, but then he realized what she meant. "Things like Mjolnir, and animal familiars. Things with life energy but not necessarily... person-shaped minds." He'd picked up a few things from her as well, but still couldn't find the right word for that. Possibly because it didn't exist in English, or any known language, except maybe Jotnar. "So, letting people speak to those things in their own language, the way you spoke with the Hulk?" His mouth scrunched into a humor-filled but slightly uncomfortable smile. "What do you suppose Mjolnir thinks about all day?"

"I don't know," said Hel. "Let's find out!"

"Well, I don't have any particular need to have another tool constantly used for smashing wandering around in my brain," Bruce said, shaking his head.

"Jane," said Hel, not louder than conversationally, but Jane seemed to hear it and turned her head towards them. Hel beckoned her, and she came; the serum conversation had been a little outside of her experience, anyway. "Am I correct in thinking that you would be interested in trying something nobody has ever done before?"

"Maybe," said Jane, wary but still intensely curious. "What kind of thing?"

Bruce thought he could put this in terms she would understand. "Basically, we've been discussing different kinds of mind melds. Hel wants to see if she can facilitate one without getting too involved in it, and also try and translate between a humanoid mind and a non-humanoid one."

"Not too deep at first, I think, just enough to facilitate conversation the way the Allspeak does among humanoids." Hel smiled a bit. "How would you feel about having a chat with Mjolnir?"

Jane gawped. "Like... Mjolnir? Thor's hammer? That would be incredible! I've heard so much about where it's come from and what it's been through. You don't even understand how curious I am about it. When can we start?"

Hel grinned.

* * *

When they'd gotten the attention of the others and explained what they intended to do, they moved to the gate, where Mjolnir was still content to sit outside while the others visited. Thor watched Jane intently, a mixture of pride, worry and curiosity on his open face. It was Steve (of course, the guy who never worried about looking or sounding ridiculous if something needed doing) who explained to Mjolnir what they were about to do, and gingerly lifted it by the handle, having explained that he would take the hammer's free movement as consent to the experiment. Mjolnir shifted at his touch, coming up easily from the rocky ground of Niflheim. Jane grinned, ecstatic.

Hel lifted a blue hand to Jane's temple, then stretched a cream-colored one out towards Mjolnir, not breaching the line of Helheim's gates that stood before them. She closed her eyes, and she began.

Bruce had never seen a mental conversation from the outside, not one longer than the transfer of prepared memories Loki and Hel shared. It was much less impressive from this perspective, just a gamut of facial expressions on the part of Jane and a strangely expectant silence from Mjolnir.

Hel was the one whose eyes moved, who looked aware of things outside the bond. She smiled, crinkling her eyes as she saw Bruce watching.

Jane came out of her trance, beaming. "I just talked to a being who has _seen a supernova from the inside!_" She grabbed Thor's arm, eyes wide and excited on his. "You have _no idea_ what you've been carrying, what a wealth of information is just trapped in there! And the way it explained Yggdrasil to me... I have to go back home and run more tests on the dimensional artifacts, I've been missing the whole point, and it's all right _there,_ that was the most incredible experience of my _life!_"

Thor was pleased beyond how any of them had seen him. "You must tell me," he said. "You must tell me everything."


	11. Chapter 11

The two weeks were nearing their end, and Bruce and Hel sat close together once more, and a sort of lassitude had crept over them, a hesitance to break the companionable silence and begin thinking again. The quiet here was unlike any other, and Bruce savored it. It was like floating on the Dead Sea where the rest of his life was spent watching for or being battered by a hurricane.

But his mind still twitched with curiosity, that element that had gotten him into such a turbulent life in the first place, and it wasn't going away.

"You remember how you asked me why I couldn't just change my own life? Stop or alter the transformation?"

"Yes, I do," Hel said, smiling just a bit melancholy at everything she had learned about Bruce's predicament since then.

"Well, now you've got me wondering," he said. "If Jotunn have so much control over their own bodies, why can't you just... fix yourself? Walk out of that gate, do some shapeshifting, get everything the way you want it and never look back?"

She sighed. "Not only am I most likely without the power of Yggdrasil to accomplish larger-scale works of magic. That problem was the focus of my father's life for ten years, and he was skilled even then, his Eye sharper and his experience with form changes extensive. Even for natural shapeshifters, there are things that cannot be done. Systems that refuse to be compromised. The nervous and immune systems resist change. My body is a tangle of Jotunn and Aesir genetics and organs, but the critical incompatibility is in the nerves and brain. I hurt, Bruce, every second I am outside these walls, and I have tried, more than once, to leave. It has not proven a worthwhile avenue."

Bruce nodded. "That makes a certain amount of sense. And I suppose it would work as a defense mechanism against shapeshifting into something without the ability to shift yourself back."

She smiled. "Indeed. It would be unfortunate to shift oneself into an owl too well, and then cease to be aware that one was ever anything else."

"But Darcy can do a lot, even without the Eye. She turned Loki into a cat once."

She rolled her eyes. "Brute force magic, in the style of a blind Asgardian. And yet I venture a guess that his mind remained intact, despite his change in form."

He chuckled, nodding. "He definitely kept the attitude, and the preference for Tony." Then Bruce bit his lip, looking at his hands again. "Consciousness persists, huh? So it couldn't have been the magic that created the Hulk?"

Hel's voice went soft, gentle. "The Hulk has been part of you for a very long time," she said.

Bruce shook his head. "I don't want to believe that. I've never wanted to believe that. But... at the same time, I kind of knew. And now I've found someone who can just... look in my head, and talk to him in his own language. You tell me it's true. It's... disconcerting, I don't like it, but I know it's a good thing for me to hear it. I should have realized before." He trailed off, looking miserable.

Hel's forehead wrinkled. "I believe I understand. I think, in the same way, I've always known I was part Jotunn. And for the scant months I have known, I have been unable to avoid the thought that if I had accepted the evidence, if I had told Father of my suspicions, I might have saved him, and so many others, a great deal of pain."

He put an arm around her. "There's no changing the past," he said. "That's how I've come to view it. It doesn't matter how much of what I've done is something I could have changed, because I can't now. I can only do my best." He gave her a twisted smile. "Why is that stuff always so much easier to say when you're talking to someone else?"

"You're a giving soul, Bruce," she said. "You'd rather deny yourself everything than take away anyone else's anything. But I think... if you wish to understand and speak with the Hulk... you have to let yourself want things. Be immature and demanding and impatient."

He laughed, somewhat bitterly. "Of course, it's everything I've been running away from."

Hel pulled him closer. "Well, I will help you. Self-absorption is something I have in spades." She was excited, but at the same time strangely hesitant, when she suggested, "Shall I learn what I can, while I have you? May I touch your mind again?"

"Of course," he said, and he surprised himself at how quickly he'd answered, how welcome the idea was.

It had been a wonderful experience, and he was... entertaining the notion of being selfish.

Her mind was, as he remembered, both welcoming and hard-edged, where his was closed off and built for compromise. Even with only two minds to compare, it was amazing how much one learned about oneself.

She greeted him warmly, and they spent a moment just basking in the closeness, affection and appreciation at the forefront. But soon enough, her growing curiosity could not be missed.

"Go on, talk to the Hulk. Say hi for me," Bruce told her.

She acknowledged and thanked him for that, and she was abruptly elsewhere. Bruce found that if he stilled his mind, as if meditating or listening hard, he could perceive the vibrations of their conversation. Lower and slower than the wavelength he operated on. Well, maybe not actually slower, it occurred to him. He remembered Hel saying how much had gone between them in the brief span the last time they had talked. He listened. Deep, broad strokes of communication, but complex none the less. As for its content, Bruce only caught that it was a narrative, Hulk's story, fighting and running and rage and confusion, one after the other.

When she returned, she was glowing with excitement.

"You learned a lot?" he asked.

"Yes, a great deal. And I have much hope that the two of you will come to form a rapport, in time."

"Really? Why is that?"

"Hulk has been waiting for you to realize that the two of you would make a phenomenal team."

Bruce fixed her with an intent look. "For how long?"

"Since the sky opened up; since he caught Iron Man as he fell, and you helped Hulk save him."

"Since the Chitauri invasion," Bruce said, wide-eyed. "He - I helped him save Tony? I don't remember any of that."

"He does," Hel said, smiling. "He knows you have a lot of medical knowledge. He reached out to you, to ask you what he could do, and you answered. You answered, 'Roar!'" Hel chuckled. "He was quite pleased that it was something natural to him, and that it worked."

"Huh." Bruce thought back. "I remember when Tony explained to me what had happened, an explanation for why it worked jumped into my mind. But I never thought that it might be because I'd thought about it before. I didn't even know we'd communicated, but _he_ was listening." Bruce dropped his head into one hand. "I've been underestimating him so much for so long."

"But now you know, and now you will try harder," Hel replied. "That alone will make him much more content to wait."

Bruce felt movement in his mind in response to her words, something like a release, like the huff of Hulk's great breath. It left things more open; there was an exhilarating sense of possibility.

He reached out towards it, towards the waiting emptiness in the place where he remembered finding only an unyielding wall of rage.

He felt the Hulk flinch as they made contact, and stiffen, and shut him out.

Well, he had tried to kill the guy.

Bruce resigned himself to that aborted contact happening many more times in the future.

He turned his attention back to Hel, who was waiting for him. She welcomed his mental touch, which was very reassuring just then. He folded into her, seeking comfort and the knowledge that he was not alone.

She didn't deny him anything, even when he felt the outlines of the inevitable knowledge that the two of them weren't going to be everything to each other that they needed in a lover, that they weren't destined to last.

Even though they loved each other. It would never be enough.

Hel's curiosity was only just awakening, demanding more and different experiences, like the dawn breaking to reveal a horizon on which she could not yet choose only one destination.

And deep down in his selfish core, Bruce wasn't actually good at sharing.

After she'd met Len, Betty could never again be entirely his, and so he'd refused all claim to her, once he realized that. And Hel wasn't really his, either; part of her wanted to be, but she couldn't be, not yet, probably not during Bruce's earthly lifetime (however long that might prove to be).

A tiny seed of bitterness settled back down into his core, heavy and very familiar.

Her response was sad but resigned, and they set about saying goodbye.

"I'm sorry," she said. "This isn't exactly what I wanted."

"Nothing in life ever quite is." He pushed his lower lip up in the ghost of a grimace. "I'm used to it."

"Still, I wish things could have been different."

He shook his head. "Wasn't going to happen. We both gave it our best. We're almost... too alike, in a strange way. We can't be anything other than what we are. A goddess who's not quite a goddess and a mortal who isn't quite a mortal." He looked at her from under his brows as he continued. "You're like a mirror - and I noticed that about Loki, when he appeared on Earth. I hated and feared him and worried about what he might do because I felt the same way about myself. And when I started to be able to trust myself, I also saw the possibility of trusting him. That he needed someone to do that for him as badly as I did. We both owe Tony a lot for being willing to be the first."

Bruce sighed as he collected his thoughts, took them further. "And in a way, loving you allowed me to start loving myself, and I can never repay you for the gift that that has been."

Hel took his face in her hands, making him look her in the eye. "You already have - you and Jane and Tony, you've changed this place. That is something I thought impossible, and I would not have you underestimate its importance to me. And the memories you allowed me to see - that was precious, more precious than books." She smiled at him, eyes sparkling with humor.

"I love you," she said tenderly, "and this has been a wonderful... change of pace. But I think that it is time for both of us... finally... to move on to whatever comes next."

He nodded, knowing that she was right but still hating it. That anger would last him a while, take him through the period of readjustment to being on Earth, being in control.

"You know how much I love you," he said, and she did, she knew all this. He just needed to remind her. "I hope you find what you need."

She knew he was struggling; she knew it was his usual state, and that there was really no way she could end it. But maybe she could still somehow make things a little easier.

"You didn't bring anything with you but yourself and your mind," she said, "which, do not mistake me, is impressive and gladdening enough. But, if you could preserve something here forever, what would you choose?"

And the gears turned, Bruce's mind engaged, leaving the emotions to the side to make way for work. Thinking of possibilities, solutions to persistent problems, was what he did. And he knew, without too much wondering, what his answer would be.

"I'd start a seed library," he said.

Hel watched him, fascinated, wondering at how his mind worked. "Seed library?"

"There are a lot of different plants on Earth, but more and more of them are dying out because of modern agricultural practices. There are a lot of problems with that, but one of the major ones is the vulnerability of monoculture. We've had times on Earth when disease wiped out an entire breed of food crop, the only one people were growing, and it's meant famine or close to it. People have started to seek out unusual varieties of food plants, especially, and collect their seeds in case we need them. Just having a variety of types helps, if we ever need to start over breeding food crops to fit new circumstances. But no matter how well we store them, they don't stay alive forever. So if I were to bring anything here, it would be the beginnings of a seed library."

Her eyes shone. "I like that. Not a repository of death and endings, but one of life and new beginnings. I hope you'll do that."

He nodded. "Well, I'll at least send something with Loki the next time he's headed here. I'm not sure when I'll feel like coming back."

"You will always be welcome," she said. "Please know that. Please remember it if you ever need refuge." She closed her eyes for a moment, not wanting to look at the way Bruce's face was shuttering itself once more. "I hate to cause pain, but it so often seems inevitable."

Bruce shook his head. "This isn't you. None of this is you. You know how much you've given me, and you know that I'm holding onto this for a reason."

She thought about that. "I see. Life hurts," she concluded. "That doesn't mean we shouldn't live it."

He smiled. "Then let's go and live our lives."

* * *

**((A/N:**

Woah, that was a lot of technobabble! This was kind of the story where I let my magic/science headcanons go crazy and start riots in the streets. The next few chapter stories in the series should be more story and less... that. I _may_ have another sciencey oneshot next, but it should be in a more crowd-pleasing format. But my view is, if we can't be self-indulgent in fanfic, when can we be?

Until next time!

-q


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